Windy City goes for the green
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Chicago is joining Portland and Seattle as one of the nation's most committed environmental cities.
seattletimes.nwsource.com
By Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen
CHICAGO — On the scalding eighth-floor roof of the Chicago Cultural Center, workers dripped sweat as they planted row upon tidy row of hardy plants, the latest signal of one big-city government's determination to be green.
On other downtown rooftops, tall, corkscrew-shaped turbines will harness the winds that race across the plains. A new roof on Chicago's vast convention center will channel 55 million gallons of rainwater a year into Lake Michigan instead of into overburdened storm drains.
Skeptics snickered 17 years ago when Mayor Richard M. Daley added flowers and trees to the city's to-do list. They scoffed at the apparent folly of beautifying a sprawling, gritty urban landscape. A few tulips, they figured, and that would be the end of it.
But the city-kid mayor raised on the rough-and-tumble South Side stuck with it. The greening project grew strong roots, giving Chicago a reputation as one of the nation's most committed environmental cities of any size. The company it keeps is not Newark and Detroit, but Portland and Seattle.
As other cities have climbed on board, Pacific Northwest progressives no longer have a corner on the market.
Since Daley began investing tax dollars in greening the city, Chicago has planted as many as 400,000 trees, according to city spokesmen. It employs more arborists than any U.S. city.
There are 2.5 million square feet of green roofs completed or under construction, boosted by expedited permitting and density bonuses for developers who embrace the concept.
"A lot of people think this is weird stuff, like yurts and straw-bale houses. The mayor has set a big and important commitment. He really wants people to walk the talk," said Judith Webb, a U.S. Green Building Council spokeswoman. "When a city with a reputation and a population like Chicago begins doing green building as a matter of course, that's a real indication this isn't a fad or short-term trend."
On other fronts, the city provides 10,000 bike racks and announced a goal of quintupling bike lanes to 500 miles by 2015. The city spent $3.1 million on a bike station at Millennium Park that has 300 indoor bike spaces, along with lockers and showers.
"The more concrete we pour down America, the more deserts we destroy and farmland we destroy, the more global warming we're going to have," Daley said. "If there's more trees, more flowers and more greenery, it helps the environment and attracts nature."
Daley is an especially big fan of green roofs. The City Hall roof, planted with more than 150 varieties of plants, is often 50 degrees cooler in summer than nearby asphalt roofs, where temperatures can reach 170 degrees. "The quality of the building outside affects how you live inside, what you're breathing," Daley said. "Anytime you fly into an airport, you see flat roofs. Imagine if every one of those flat roofs had a green roof. What a difference that would make!"
Despite 70 miles of planted medians, Chicago is hardly a new Eden. Among other challenges, the city of 3 million is clogged with commuter traffic, its sewage infrastructure is outdated, its beaches often close because of summertime bacteria and its recycling program has long been an inefficient tangle of missed opportunities.
"We're all humble about this," said Kathryn Tholin, chief executive of the Center for Neighborhood Technology. "There's lot more to do, but if it's measured in commitment that goes all the way to the top in the city administration, we definitely have it." |
