by Anne Holub
11/20/09

This week I was lucky enough to hear Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, speak at a small speakers’ series hosted by the MacArthur Foundation at the Adler Planetarium. He spoke briefly, mainly covering a broad group of topics relating to his work and thoughts on online innovations, but it was most interesting to hear how Newmark, who created such a ubiquitous online resource as Craigslist, spends his time.

Newmark spoke about some of his favorite projects as of late, including microfinancing outlets like Kiva.org where small loans are doled out to deserving entrepreneurs, DonorsChoose.org which connects classrooms needing donations for supplies or projects with donors, and AllForGood.org which lets users find volunteer opportunities in their community. He’s also a big fan of sites such as SeeClickFix.com and services like 3-1-1 (which operates in Chicago) where community members can communicate with local governments to enact change.  He spoke very highly of federal government programs like the TSA’s “Idea Factory” that encourages collaboration and the ongoing “Innovation Competition” offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (for which Newmark will help select winners).

Newmark spends time nearly every day answering customer service emails for Craigslist, whether he’s on the road spending time in a coffee shop, or at home in San Francisco. He even blogged about a personal philosophy regarding customer service on his blog this week. Newmark shared this philosophy on Tuesday, as he believes “customer service done in good faith is public service” and “customer service anchors you to reality”.

You can read more about Newmark on his blog, or on his Wikipedia entry (he’s a member of the advisory board for the Wikimedia Foundation) and keep up with his travels and thoughts.

I would hope that the GO TO 2040 campaign, including our efforts to connect with residents of northeastern Illinois would please Newmark. Remember, we’re always eager for your feedback. Check out and comment on our Strategy Papers, imagine the future in our Community Design Workshops, and read our latest Draft Preferred Regional Scenario (updated 11/09) and let us know what you think.

Regional Workforce Collaboration

Though the economy still has a lot of recovering to do, and unemployment is at 10.5 percent in Illinois, there is hope in the form of regional coordination for workforce development.  On November 9, 2009, the Chicago Jobs Council (CJC), in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust (CCT) and CMAP, hosted a daylong meeting on regional workforce development.  The Chicago Community Trust commissioned the report  for the GO TO 2040 plan.

A key goal of the meeting was to discuss the report’s recommendations for workforce development, as developed by the CJC and an advisory council that  included 19 workforce development practitioners.  At the meeting, 85 stakeholders in education and workforce and economic development evaluated opportunities for regional collaboration across information systems (which will include CMAP’s Regional Indicators project), within targeted sectors, and in career training pathways.  Discussions highlighted stimulus-funded opportunities to train workers and create jobs. 

“It was a great opportunity to hear reactions to the recommendations developed earlier this year and explore how to make them happen as new economic and workforce development initiatives are emerging in the region,” said CJC associate director Carrie Thomas.

This meeting was part of a long-term process to implement regional workforce development strategies.  Additional opportunities for participation in this process and the implementation of the recommendations are forthcoming.  See the CJC website for meeting materials, including the full report.  For more information about the event, visit our GO TO 2040 blog.  If you are interested in learning more or becoming involved in this process, please contact Annie Byrne at abyrne@cmap.illinois.gov.

by Justine Reisinger
11/18/09 

The future of northeastern Illinois depends on regional decisions and actions, whether focused on the environment, transportation, land use, workforce development, or other quality-of-life factors. As CMAP executive director Randy Blankenhorn likes to say, “Decisions we made 20, 30 years ago are why the region is the way it is today.”

The GO TO 2040 comprehensive regional plan is moving toward completion in October 2010 (the draft for the preferred Regional Scenario is now online). CMAP is formulating strategic decisions and actions based on extensive research by the agency and its partners and on input by residents and stakeholder groups. The GO TO 2040 Strategy Papers focus on a wide range of topic areas, from climate change to arts and culture, to help understand current conditions in the region and possible strategies to solve existing and anticipated problems. This past summer’s Invent the Future public input was the most extensive phase of CMAP’s on-going efforts to engage residents in imagining how the region can meet the challenges of adding a projected 2.8 million new residents by 2040.

In this regard, the Workforce Development strategy paper is an important new GO TO 2040 publication. It has prompted regional leaders to begin the process of engaging a broader group of stakeholders to explore recommendations in the report. The Chicago Jobs Council (CJC), in partnership with the Chicago Community Trust (CCT) and CMAP, hosted a daylong meeting on November 9, 2009 to discuss the recommendations for workforce development generated by the CJC and an advisory council, which included 19 workforce development stakeholders. At the meeting, 85 stakeholders in education and workforce and economic development evaluated opportunities for regional collaboration across information systems (which will include CMAP’s Regional Indicators project), within targeted sectors, and in career training pathways. Discussions highlighted stimulus-funded opportunities to train workers and create jobs.

“It was a great opportunity to hear reactions to the recommendations developed earlier this year and explore how to make them happen as new economic and workforce development initiatives are emerging in the region,” said CJC associate director Carrie Thomas.

Attendees came from a range of northeastern Illinois organizations, including workforce boards, community colleges, and non-profit job training and placement organizations. The GO TO 2040 planning process, combined with the recent influx of federal stimulus funding, is a catalyst for renewed regional workforce development collaboration. This meeting envisioned collaboration that also included education leaders and economic developers, in addition to those in workforce development.

This meeting was part of a long-term process to implement regional workforce development strategies. The recommendations of the report (which was commissioned as input to the GO TO 2040 plan by the CCT) require collaboration and coordination between varieties of stakeholders to create:

• Coordinated workforce, education, and economic development planning and information systems across the region.
• An integrated and adaptive career and education pathway system driven by skill needs of employers and accessible to all workers in the region.

A recent update of the Skills2Compete – Illinois report “Illinois Forgotten Middle Skill Jobs” reveals that, despite the current unemployment situation, demand for skilled workers remains strong. In the conclusion of his presentation at the regional meeting, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank economist Rick Mattoon pointed out that structural unemployment – in which there’s a mismatch between the skilled workers looking for jobs and the available vacancies -- puts a premium on retraining and matching of skilled workers to jobs. This means that the role of the workforce development system is critical to helping the region’s workers and businesses emerge from the recession.

Additional opportunities for participation in this process are forthcoming, and engaging additional stakeholders is an important first priority for CMAP and its partners. See the CJC website for meeting materials, including presentations by Mattoon and Thomas. If you are interested in learning more or becoming involved in this process, please contact Annie Byrne at abyrne@cmap.illinois.gov.

by Anne Holub
11/16/09

This beautiful early morning shot of the Openlands Lakeshore Preserve in Lake County was taken by Flickr user mastodont and was uploaded to our Explore Northeastern Illinois Flickr Pool. The preserve is one of the last remaining ravine and bluff ecosystems in northeastern Illinois. The dawn colors look painted, don't they?

View the latest regional Economic Recovery Update, produced by CMAP in partnership with the Regional ARRA Coordinating Council (RACC). Be watching for it every other Wednesday, and click here to sign up for CMAP email updates.

: Three Tactics That Make a Great Transit System and its Relevance to Chicagoland

The following is part of a series of blog contributions by Robert Munson, a member of the CMAP Citizens' Advisory Committee (CAC). The views expressed are not necessarily those of the CAC or of CMAP itself.

by Robert Munson, CAC member
11/12/09

Many think Vancouver is the future of transit. If so, then those who wish to elevate Chicagoland’s transit need not fear the future. For in Vancouver, the future is nearly now. And while Chicagoland’s transit “bones” may be at least 60 years old, Vancouver’s young structure offers us important lessons.

Probably more than any North American city, Vancouver shows how investing in transit leads to prosperous, great communities. Repeatedly, Vancouver works this formula well: build a rail line, sprout compact communities, diversify land uses, attract talent, and watch property values grow.

Mid-October was my third visit to Vancouver; each was during a telling time.

My first visit was in 1993, several years after opening the system’s first line. It was already a success, a model in Transit Oriented Development proving that compact communities with mixed uses create transit options that work economically.

In 2003, I visited after the second line opened, and it showed the same promise.

Just before my October 2009 visit, the third line opened. It is attracting most of the new development that is not connected to the 2010 Olympics. Vancouver’s transit and land use combinations are so effective that they create growth despite today’s downturn. 

This poster is from inside a car on Vancouver's new line connecting downtown to the Olympic Village (fourth stop) with the airport and some compact south suburban communities. A similarity of Illinois to British Columbia is both are broke; so the federal government had to finance the Canada Line. Beyond that, we have much to learn. Canada brought in a private partner; making this a true public-private partnership. Illinois lacks laws to facilitate this. Also, this poster welcomes riders and tells them staff is there to serve them. The CTA would do well to take note.

Several factors contribute to Vancouver’s transit success. Three of them can help Chicagoland revitalize its transit, which is perhaps the vital ingredient still required to make us into a world-class region again. These three factors also are strategic considerations in the GO TO 2040 Plan’s next phase, Selecting a Preferred Scenario.

First: Understand what customers want. Part of Vancouver’s success comes from its agency’s clear understanding of what riders want. Among other market research tools, Translink Listens is the agency’s on-going on-line advisory panel. Visit it at www.translinklistens.ca, and you will start to understand how Vancouver gets the middle class to leave their cars and use transit.

While the CTA and RTA listen to the public, riders have little more than a restricted comment period that agencies must execute to get tax dollars for capital improvements. This is a different goal than understanding what customers want so they voluntarily open their wallets, get on the system, and improve its cash flow.

Second: Meet deadlines. Vancouver’s two greatest surges were induced by the World Expo 1986 that produced the first line (called the “Expo Line”), and the 2010 Winter Olympics that produced the third (called the “Canada Line”). Both were built in less than five years. In between, the second line (named the Millennium) took 18 years to build and is much smaller.

Chicago’s loss of the Olympic bid has prompted regional leaders to look for another deadline. The Olympic bid included key proposals to improve how we will get around our metropolis in the 21st Century. Deadlines must be built into the GO TO 2040 Plan. A Preferred Scenario must shape them.

Third: Motivate with a Big Concept. “Vancouverism” captures this city’s pre-eminent livability: beautiful public spaces, compactness and great transit. This “school” of planning is being updated for the 21st Century with sustainability as its goal.

The Chicago “school” that built hub and spoke train systems 100 years ago also needs updating for this Sustainable Century. The GO TO 2040 Preferred Scenario should build upon our unique contribution to metropolitan planning.

So what are Vancouver’s lessons to updating Chicago’s transit? Consider these three: market research, deadlines, and a big, clear idea.

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Newsletter coming out this Thursday

In respect for Veterans Day, the latest Economic Recovery Update will come out this Thursday, November 12 instead of on Wednesday. The next newsletter will come out on Wednesday, November 25.

Building a green economy with stimulus funds
Creating green jobs and building a green economy that will all be sustainable years down the road is a major aspect of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).  The act aims to accomplish this feat throughout a range of programs, from workforce training for green jobs to grants for energy efficiency strategies to support for renewable energy firms.  Approximately $80 billion of ARRA funds deal with energy and the environment, according to “Recovery Through Retrofit.”  With significant funding for weatherization, energy efficiency and conservation projects, green job training, and the State’s energy plan, there is an important opportunity to jumpstart a greener future.  Now is a better time than ever to learn more about the green stimulus with new greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting requirements, a wealth of valuable online resources, and a series of local and national reports describing the importance on the green stimulus.  CMAP created a resource guide on stimulus funds designated towards building a green economy and creating green jobs, which includes a graph and chart to show how much money is available nationally through the stimulus related to building a green economy, as well as how the stimulus money for such programs gets to the region.

by Lindsay Banks
11/9/09

Our Flickr photo of the week was taken by Flickr member Yooperann who took advantage of the great fall weather we had this weekend.  This image of fallen leaves was taken in Forest Park, IL and was submitted to our Explore Northeastern Illinois Flickr Pool. 

Also, we recently launched our 2009 Images of Northeastern Illinois Photo Contest which runs during the month of November. Don't miss your chance to share some of your great photos of the region! Full details and rules are here.

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The following is part of a series of blog contributions by Robert Munson, a member of the CMAP Citizens' Advisory Committee (CAC). The views expressed are not necessarily those of the CAC or of CMAP itself.

 

Who Will GROW TO 2040?

by Robert Munson
11/4/09

This was one of six posters promoting the 2009 summer workshops when over 80% of citizens said they want investment in transportation alternatives.

Answer: Those communities who start today to adapt their Land Use policies so they can grow, balance their books and compete in the 21st Century economy.

The last nine months have seen the most dramatic changes in the metropolitan area that I have seen since I was born here in 1953. If you are making a list of how our communities are changing recently, consider these three.

• A deep recession is causing a series of fiscal crises for Illinois, our counties and cities; resulting in service cuts so deep that it could take until 2016 to return to 2008 levels.
• Federal policy is evolving to fund infrastructure for those non-auto transportation options (i.e. transit, bikes, walking) that are easier and -- when coupled with compact communities -- make people healthier.
• CMAP organized 60+ workshops to ask citizens to shape their future. The results startled most everyone (especially me) with over 80% saying they want greater investments in transit and 60% wanting more compact communities.  
• The above three changes create a growing chasm between what citizens expect and what local governments deliver. This chasm can be bridged as the GO TO 2040 campaign enters its next phase to describe the region’s Preferred Scenario. To prompt this discussion, I offer this 5 Part series. Here is its Synopsis.

Part 1,  The Promise Of Regional Planning  [PDF], discusses how participating in GO TO 2040 is essential to grow out of what has become recurring fiscal stress.

The middle three Parts describe how land use policies of three counties reflect the three economies of the last 100 years (industrial, consumer and the emerging “energy-efficient” economy) and how each county can adapt to the 21st Century.  

Part 2, How The Wisdom Of Our Ancestors Made Us Healthy, Wealthy And Wise…. And Is Doing So Again.  The land use and transportation patterns set 100 years ago in the Burnham Plan cemented Cook County as the world’s industrial powerhouse for over three decades and the entire region prospered. Part 2 suggests how Chicago’s pattern makes it easier for the entire region to prosper again in the new energy-efficient economy.
 
Part 3, Consumerism And DuPage Today, explores how this county’s development mirrored the consumer economy; blossoming in the 1960s and ending in today’s recession. But these land use patterns will work against most suburbs’ ability to compete in the 21st Century economy… unless citizens get what they want: transportation options supported by more compact communities.
 
Part 4, Can Exurbs Become Sustainable Suburbs?, asks how Kendall County can test greenfield development patterns that meet 21st Century challenges.
 
Part 5, Start Now If You Expect To Grow, argues that those community leaders who make local decisions that support the region’s plan starting in 2010 will succeed in helping their communities compete in the emerging economy. And those leaders who do not, will not. 

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by Erin Aleman
11/3/09

FLIP students brainstorming at a recent session

Last month I gave a presentation at the American Planning Association’s Tuesdays at APA on engaging youth in the planning process.  I was interested to see who would show up for my presentation and was pleasantly surprised to learn that many of the audience members were involved in youth planning programs to some degree.  Engaging youth in planning isn’t a new idea. Wacker’s Manual is one of the lasting legacies of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago.  It was created for eighth graders so that they too would understand the benefits of good planning.

I have been involved in the development of CMAP’s Future Leaders in Planning (FLIP) program since its inception in 2008.  FLIP is a leadership development and regional planning program for high school aged youth living in northeastern Illinois.  FLIP has just begun its second year and I have to say we learned a lot from the first year of FLIP.  In putting my presentation together I spent some time reflecting on why our pilot program was such a success.

To figure out what might interest young people in what planners do for a living, we held a “focus group” with local high school students.  There’s no better way to discover what turns young people on to extra-curricular programs than to get it straight from them.  Did we, as adults, need to provide incentives?  How could this program be mutually beneficial to both CMAP and the students? 

Some other things to keep in mind when creating a youth program is to have the program at a time when youth are available – for us it ended up being Saturdays – and to have a clear goal for the program.  Finally, I would recommend any successful youth program reassess itself throughout the program with the help of student participants.  Often students have thoughtful, creative solutions that can improve your program and by way of doing so it empowers them to take ownership of the program and make it the best it can be.

There are a lot of resources out there for developing your own youth program.  Here are a few that might be useful:

National League of Cities: Institute for Youth, Education, and Families
APA’s ResoucesZine and other youth resources
National Engineers’ Week Future City Competition
Chicago Botanic Garden’s Fairchild Challenge
Planner’s Network: Young Planners Network
National Geographic’s Xpedition site

In case you missed my presentation at Tuesdays at APA, you can listen to a podcast of the presentation on iTunes or download the presentation here. 

Mapping Transportation projects
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) created a new website to map and track stimulus projects.  This Geographic Information System (GIS) site displays funding amounts and lists projects down to the county and congressional district in the following DOT operating administrations:

• Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
• Transit Administration (FTA)
• Railroad Administration (FRA)
• Administration (MARAD)
• Office of the Secretary (OST)

by Anne Holub
11/2/09

This week's photo comes off of a memorable month of weather in the area as it was the 5th wettest October on record. This is a great shot from a Metea Valley High School football game in Aurora, IL. You can almost smell the mud! It comes to us from Flickr user Laurence Pearlman from our pool. We also just launched our 2009 Images of Northeastern Illinois Photo Contest which runs during the month of November. I hope you can share some of your great photos of the region! Full details and rules are here.

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Full rollout of recipient reporting now online
Want to see how recipients of stimulus funds are spending their money and how many jobs are being created or saved by stimulus funds?  Full recipient data from prime and sub-recipients of ARRA funds of $25,000 or more are now online at Recovery.gov, where the stimulus can be tracked down to the zip code on a project-by-project basis.  A total of 130,362 reports were filed by recipients throughout October for stimulus loans (607 reports), contracts (13,080 reports), and grants (116,675 reports), according to Recovery.gov.  Reports include information on the amount of stimulus funds received by each recipient, funds expended, a description and location of projects, and how many jobs were created or saved by the funds.  In Illinois, more than 24,000 jobs were created or saved, and nationally approximately 640,000 jobs were created or saved by stimulus funds, as reported by recipients.  Keep in mind, recipient reporting is currently based on $160 billion of the total $787 billion in the ARRA and does not take into account any jobs that were indirectly saved or created thanks to stimulus funds.  The next reporting period for recipients of stimulus funds will begin on January 1, 2010.

Decoding the numbers and maps based on recipient reports can be difficult.  Thankfully, there are a wealth of government and non-governmental resources to help understand the progress of ARRA in real-life terms. In addition, CMAP will soon be expanding our analyses of the stimulus, using this data to provide regional summaries and evaluation of spending for transportation, housing programs, workforce development, energy, and weatherization.  The following resources and recent reports provide helpful and interesting information for those interested in better understanding the impacts thus far:

• Recovery Act in Action:  Recipient Reports on Jobs
  This paper, released by the Office of the Vice President, explains with more in-depth information how jobs were reportedly created or saved in the context of the entire $787 billion in stimulus funds.
• ProPublica’s Unofficial Guide to Recovery.gov
  ProPublica analyses Recovery.gov’s recently published data in terms of jobs, need, transparency, equity, investments, and waste, fraud and abuse.
• President Obama’s Weekly Address
  Obama’s weekly address for the week of October 23, 2009 focuses on the jobs created and strengthening of the economy as related to the work of the stimulus.
• Stimulus Jobs Check:  Are They For Real?
  CBS Evening News visited both California and Illinois on Friday, October 30 to evaluate the validity of reported jobs that were created or saved by the stimulus.  Though the outlook was grim from inside a California school, news was a bit brighter from inside Chicago’s Ba Le Vietnamese Bakery.
• Stimulus gave state 16,000 school, highway jobs
  The Chicago Tribune provided an insightful analysis of recipient reporting as it pertains to the state of Illinois. Of jobs saved and created in Illinois, the majority were in the education sector, according to the article.

by Anne Holub
10/29/09

In each of our 57 Invent the Future Workshops this summer, we asked participants to write down their regional priorities on sticky notes that we then displayed for discussion. We recently typed up all of those notes, and plugged them into Wordle visualizations, making for some cool art that speaks to your priorities for Northeastern Illinois. Check out all of our Wordles here including ones for economic development, education, and civic involvement.

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View the latest regional Economic Recovery Update, produced by CMAP in partnership with the Regional ARRA Coordinating Council (RACC).  Be watching for it every other Wednesday, and click here to sign up for CMAP email updates.

Creating a Chicago Regional Building Energy Efficiency System
The Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Regional ARRA Coordinating Council (RACC) member, published a new report, “Creating a Chicago Regional Building Energy Efficiency System .”  The report details short- and long-term opportunities for the metropolitan Chicago region to bring all commercial and residential buildings up to 21st Century energy efficiency standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save money.  In the report, CNT proposes a two-track process of identifying funding and then creating/designing a network or institution to carry on energy efficiency work over the long term.  ARRA funding can be wisely used to "jumpstart the creation of a market and infrastructure for accomplishing [energy efficiency]," and financing from utilities and others can help sustain this work over the long term, according to the report.  CNT’s own LEED Platinum office building demonstrates how energy efficient retrofits can be a good investment.

by Randy Blankenhorn
10/26/09

GO TO 2040's next major milestone is the preferred Regional Scenario that will be submitted to the CMAP Board and MPO Policy Committee for endorsement in January 2010.  You can preview the current draft scenario, and click here to submit a comment. 

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is the regional planning organization for the northeastern Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will. By state and federal law, CMAP is responsible for developing the region’s official comprehensive regional plan. The GO TO 2040 plan (www.goto2040.org) will address the full range of issues that will determine our region’s future prosperity and sustainability, including Transportation, land use, the natural environment, economic development, housing, and human and community development.

Within the past two years, CMAP has released a Regional Vision that describes our region’s desired future, prepared nearly 50 reports on major issues and strategies that need to be addressed, and involved the public in our process through public meetings and interactive online software. The next stage in GO TO 2040 is to use the results of this research and public input to determine the region’s priorities and recommendations for action.

Enclosed with this letter is CMAP’s draft “preferred Regional Scenario” report, which describes the plan’s expected policy directions and the regional benefits of pursuing those directions. This report will form the basis of the GO TO 2040 plan’s recommendations. It does not contain specific recommended actions or implementation details, but it does describe the key policy areas that the plan will address.

Major Transportation capital projects, which include major rail and expressway additions or expansions, are not explicitly addressed in the preferred scenario. CMAP is currently evaluating major Transportation capital projects and will be seeking comments on projects early in 2010.

I'd like to thank everyone who is taking time to participate in the GO TO 2040 process, and we look forward to receiving your comments or questions.

by Anne Holub
10/16/09

Today's Flickr Photo comes from Jackson Park's Osaka Garden in Chicago and was provided by Flickr user phototravel1 in our pool. Originally designed for the World Columbian Exposition in 1893 by Frederick Law Olmstead (the renouned landscape architect who also designed much of New York City's Central Park), Jackson Park hosts a beautiful Japanese garden. Get out and explore it today and enjoy the fall colors!

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Learn more about CMAP’s work related to the stimulus
Want to learn more about the work CMAP does in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)?  We have posted a new flyer describing CMAP’s coordinating role and how we are responding to the Recovery Act.  This includes our Transportation committee’s review of shovel-ready Transportation projects;  our regional consortium proposal to the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 (NSP);  and our work to provide helpful information on updates and implementation regarding the stimulus through this Recovery blog and our twice-monthly Economic Recovery Update email newsletters.