Features

Building a Better Chicago
After 150 years, a dynamic, vibrant city gets a bit of advice from some of its top movers, shakers, doers, and thinkers.

Behind the Facade
by M.W. Newman
When are we going to learn that bigger isn’t always better?

Politics, Plans, and Priorities
by Harold Washington, Edward Vrdolyak, James R. Thompson, Pierre deVise, and Andrew M. Greeley
Faced with dwindling resources, maybe it’s time for the city to ask the suburbs to pay their fair share.

The Bottom Line
by Donald H. Haider, Nina Klarich, Bernard Weissbourd, Roger E. Anderson, and Sidney Lens
The big challenge: keeping the city fiscally secure while retaining businesses and creating jobs

Minority Report
by Irving B. Harris, Arnold Jacob Wolf, Mario J. Aranda, Michael Salmon, Newton N. Minow, Amanda S. Rudd, and Larry E. Zentz
Why giving ourselves may be in our own best interest

Work and Home
by Dick Carrigan, Jack H. Cornelius, Lois Weisberg, Susan Schmeling Aaron, Don Rose, Ann Seng, Fred Rice, Patrick F. Healy, and Studs Terkel
Putting neighborliness into downtown, and granting some downtown clout to the neighborhoods

Hitting the Books
by Alfredo S. Lanier, William Brashler, Alan Gross, David Standish, Stuart Brent, Ruth B. Love, Hanna H. Gray, and Gerhard Casper
How do we restore the glory days of Hect, MacArthur, Sandburg, and Dreiser?

Joie De Vivre
by Marshall Patner, Lewis Manilow, Stanley Tigerman, Richard Gray, Jill and Ron Rohde, Carla and Allen Kelson, Dave Kehr, Joan Harris, Rhona Hoffman, Bernard Sahlins, Robert C. Marsh, Tim Weigel, and John D. Callaway
A city’s spirit is far more than mere boosterism.

The Future
by Roger Simon, Gwendolyn Brooks, Thomas G. Ayers, and Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
Things may not be so bleak if we learn to have faith – along with a sense of humor.

A Word from our Readers
Thanks to all who entered our contest on making Chicago a better place. And now, the envelope, please…

Departments

Letters

Upfront
by Henry Hanson
HH Club probes “the Vrdolyak Connection”; the Michigan Avenue Neiman-Marcus – inviting the most conspicuous consumption; doomsday revisited – destruction both reciprocal and complete

On the Aisle: Janus-Faced January
by Claudia Cassidy
What better time to look in all directions at the arts?

Travel: Exploring the Countryside of Japan
by Jack Star

Leave industry and crowds behind, for picturesque fishing villages, ancient castles, seaside spas.

Art: Over the River and Through the Woods
by Henry Hanson
The Grant Wood retrospective is a paean to the plains – and to the plain virtues of rural America.
The Goods
by Jamie Gilson
Brookfield Zoo is celebrating its 50^th; the Renaissance Society is having a tea party; and then there are sauces frozen, books bound artfully, and blocks for building – just like Frank Lloyd Wright’s.
Audio: An Iconoclast Among Copycats
by Rich Warren
Doing things the hard way is Tandberg’s way of doing them well.
Chicago as it Was: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
by Perry R. Duis
Optimists have always predicted the elimination of slum housing. And so far they’ve always been wrong.

Roger Simon: Hog Butchering and Other Hogwash
If you still believe that the Chicago River runs backwards this will set you straight.

Books: Taking Comfort in the Tangible
Harry Mark Petrakis reflects on a writer’s life, on success, on expectations and realitites.

Publisher’s Postscript: Enjoy!
by Ray Nordstrand
Listen, all you suburbanites: It’s time to catch a show and grab some dinner; the city is safer than you think.

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