Two serious policy failures—the lack of meaningful regional coordination and the heavy subsidy of private motor vehicle travel—have combined in a "perverse" way to foster sprawl and segregation. So said Elmer Johnson, partner in the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis and former top executive at GM, in his speech titled "A Chicago Perspective," at the first research forum on October 26.

After an introduction by Ed Cohoon, deputy commissioner of Mn/DOT, Johnson described the Metropolis Project, a multiyear effort of the Commercial Club of Chicago that Johnson is directing to help prepare metro Chicago for the 21st Century. The project has developed three key proposals to remedy the flaws of sprawl while maintaining the legitimate benefits of smart growth:

• Balance the transportation system. Improve the public transportation system, reduce dependence on the private motor vehicle, and develop an intermodal transportation system—while recognizing the legitimacy of America's love affair with the auto.
• Effect new land use policies. Propose new land use policies and incentives that channel metro growth in ways that curb costly, unconstrained low-density development, encourage the growth of compact regional centers, and encourage the recycling of brownfield sites and the greater use of older parts of the region. An incentive approach will be suggested rather than imposition of growth boundaries.
• Reform the property tax system. Reform the system to fund education on a more equitable basis, moderate disparities among municipalities, and dampen the adverse regional consequences of tax-base competition among localities.

The design phase of the Metropolis Project is expected to be completed by the end of this year, Johnson said, and a report of findings and recommendations will be issued shortly thereafter. His speech is available by calling CTS or by visiting the study's Web page.

Prior to Johnson's speech, Professor John Adams of the Department of Geography presented highlights from his research on "Transportation and Twin Cities Regional Dynamics." Two central problems confront every U.S. metro area, including ours: maintaining neighborhood stability while promoting civic health, and ensuring regional economic vitality and long-term competitive strength. This study will help confront these core issues, he said. Specific research tasks are examining how transportation systems enable metro areas to function as they do, and the linkages and changes among elements such as residential and commercial/industrial development, fiscal structure of local government, schools, and major highway routes and upgrades.

Then, CTS director Gerard McCullough, the principal investigator for the overall study, moderated a panel session with Adams and State Representatives Dan McElroy and Myron Orfield. McElroy said that the key question for public policy is finding an effective balance between mandate-based central planning versus a laissez faire approach. He believes that only a sense of regional citizenship "based on enlightened self-interest" can lead to rational regional growth.

Orfield declared that we are seeing the consequences of a "very modern transportation system and an antiquated system of local governance and coordination." The chief result of this mismatch is growing disparity: "Successful regions are those that aren't making their cities and older suburbs the poorhouses of the region while building whole new rings of cities."