While Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is celebrating the city’s recent acceptance of a $1.1 billion federal grant to upgrade the CTA’s infrastructure, at least one non-profit group sees the money as putting Chicago on track to a future nightmare.
Charles Marohn, founder and president of the Minnesota-based nonprofit Strong Towns, contends that federal infrastructure programs have proven to leave areas in worse financial shape than before the big projects came to town.
"A lot of times when they’re given huge loads of federal money, cities tend to reach too far in building and investing in something they can’t afford over the long haul,” Marohn told the Chicago City Wire. “In the beginning, it all looks and feels like progress, but the people in the future may not even value these investments the same way we do today. All they’re left with are these huge obligations and massive loads of debt.”
The upgrades are expected to come to tracks in neighborhoods on the city’s North Side and are being billed as long overdue solutions to problems of persistent delays and massive overcrowding.
City officials were required to spearhead the approval of a new special taxing district in order to secure the funds, which they plan to match.
The project is expected to generate roughly $850 million over the next 17 years, not to mention countless jobs opportunities for many restless, would-be workers. City officials say the renovations will add at least 60 years of life to the century-old tracks.
Marohn, however, argues that what is often more needed in a big city like Chicago are small quality-of-life projects as mundane as fixing a neighborhood street or opening a store in a community.
“The way the system is set up, these kinds of grants and federal programs will continue to flow,” he said. “I think residents would be much better served if more money was directly given to mayors instead of directed out of Washington. With that, I think you’d see different kinds of programs being undertaken. Right now, what we’re seeing are federal priorities being addressed and not local ones.”
Another major issue Marohn sees in his equation is that federal infrastructure spending tends to go to some of the least financially productive parts of cities, raising the question of how much return there will be from such major investments.
“Many of these projects have no way of sustaining themselves,” he said. “Again, that’s just another brutal reality.”
The Chicago grant is specifically earmarked for a mile-long stretch spanning Lawrence and Bryn Mawr avenues, where new stations, signals and tracks will be constructed, along with a bypass separating Red and Brown line tracks near the Clark Junction.
Marohn’s group, Strong Towns, bills itself as supporting the development of cities, towns and neighborhoods across the country to the point of them becoming financially independent.
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