Progress Illinois

In my recent article on changing political dynamics in the collar counties, I highlighted a number of factors that are aiding Democrats at the ballot box, including demographic shifts, Republican missteps, and the transformation of the regional economy. But one factor I only touched on tangentially was what DePaul University professor Larry Bennett called "the rush of urbanization."

This phrase refers to a rise in civic problems that are traditionally found in urban areas, such as struggling schools, traffic congestion, and slow development. Suburban residents distanced themselves from these issues when they left Chicago's bungalow belts, but they have since crept back into their communities. Meanwhile, as Bennett told me, GOP legislators have failed to address these concerns adequately, instead continuing to advance an anachronistic view of suburban governance.

Michael Gecan, a national staff member for the Industrial Areas Foundation and the author of the must-read memoir Going Public, picks up where I left off, beautifully profiling DuPage County's new bouts with urbanization in this month's issue of the Boston Review:

By the date of the meeting, however, the developers who had helped double DuPage’s population in just 30 years had run out of land. The income generated by their construction efforts had dwindled to a trickle. Education and public safety costs continued to climb. Scores of specialized local districts and commissions — water, sanitary, and others — absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars that never made it into the general operating budget of the county and were subject to little, if any, scrutiny or oversight. And residential real estate taxes — the backbone of the county’s budget due to the long-standing agreement to attract and retain business by keeping commercial taxes low — soared.

(More after the jump ...)

Gecan asserts that the suburbs west of Chicago resemble the 1950 West side neighborhood where he was raised, one where "the massive economic and political, civic and religious institutions had seemed as solid and stable as glaciers" before they declined at rapid speed:

In that pleasant synagogue meeting space, with the last of the new McMansions going up across the street, with 60,000 more workers commuting in to DuPage each day than commuting out, with the local football teams on the rise and the SAT and ACT scores still high, I suggested that perhaps the county had hit its own high-water mark and that without clear-eyed re-evaluation, it was poised, as Chicago had been in the mid-1950s, for decline ... No longer young, no longer trendy, no longer the place to be, no longer without apparent limitations or constraints, these places, like people, have developed ways of avoiding reality.

It's an observation echoed last month by Christopher Leinberger in The Atlantic. He wrote that the subprime housing crisis is speeding up suburban decline in the exurbs.

But what makes Gecan's article especially valuable is his prognosis for how communities can best confront "municipal mortality." The first challenge is to address the new problems honestly and quickly without denying their existence or shifting blame. It's a task that sounds difficult for proud civic leaders, but one that Gecan says isn't as bad as people think:

Besides, when reality is finally and fully faced, it is not all bad. While a whole generation of institutions has declined, a new generation has begun to emerge. In DuPage, the Muslim and Hispanic communities are rising and eager to contribute to the next phase of the county’s life. Evangelical congregations are growing and thriving all across the country, many arriving at their own mid-life moment after 30 years of astonishing growth. The local community college — The College of DuPage — attracts a diverse cohort of 30,000 students to a single sprawling campus. Community colleges, which began decades ago as small and often isolated vocational schools, now educate 45% of college students in the United States. Vibrant networks created and led by those recovering from alcohol and substance abuse are major presences in almost every urban neighborhood or suburban development.

The two other important necessary responses are: 1) to elect new types of leaders to supplant those unwilling to adjust and adapt, and 2) to find alternative sources of revenue that can be deployed in creative ways. The election of Bob Peickert -- a key member in the grassroots organization Operation Turn DuPage Blue -- as DuPage County Democratic Party Chairman is a step in the right direction. But as many collar county residents will tell you, it's only the beginning.