The City, Revisited: Urban Theory from Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York

12. The Mayor among His Peers: Interpreting Richard M. Daley

In the first chapter of this volume, Dennis Judd sketches brief accounts of the Chicago, L.A., and New York schools of urban studies. In the case of the Chicago School, the more typical characterization of Robert Park, Ernest Burgess, Louis Wirth, et al., specifies a Chicago School of sociology.1 Nevertheless , in the early to mid-twentieth century there was a group of notable political scientists engaged in Chicago research, that is, research on Chicago. These included Harold F. Gosnell, Edward C. Banfield, and James Q. Wilson. What is less frequently noted is that there was, in that period, a clear theoretical connection between key features of the political machine—notably, as specified by Gosnell—and the urban ecology of the Chicago School sociologists . As interpreted by the Chicago School political scientists, the machine’s leadership, incentive system, and geographic structure made it the crucial arbiter among the city’s numerous and often warring ethnic populations.2 Since the 1950s, deindustrialization, suburbanization, and processes of immigrant assimilation have substantially altered Chicago’s ethnic and neighborhood map. Seemingly venerable designations such as Greektown, in fact, refer to ethnic-themed commercial districts; newer designations such as Boystown specify something akin to the “urban village,” except in this case the villagers share a lifestyle rather than a European regional lineage . Coincidentally, the once hegemonic urban sociology of Robert Park and his followers was challenged by an array of alternative interpretive frameworks.3 Yet on the ground, in Chicago, the politics of the machine were more durable. Mayor Richard J. Daley dominated Chicago’s public affairs from the mid-1950s until the mid-1970s, during these two decades The Mayor among His Peers Interpreting Richard M. Daley n Larry Bennett 12 243 The Mayor among His Peers substantially centralizing Cook County Democratic Party operations. At the peak of his power in the mid-1960s—and at a time when urban political machines across the country were in decline—the Daley machine appeared to be invulnerable. By the latter years of Richard J. Daley’s mayoralty, scholars’ interpretation of Chicago politics had undergone a subtle and possibly unconscious shift. The city’s retention of this iconic form of campaigning, government coordination, and activist recruitment was sui generis.4 And for some commentators on Chicago politics—including political scientist Milton Rakove, but also journalists such as Mike Royko—the Democratic machine’s idiosyncrasies and subterranean dealings had become a source of perverse civic pride.5 From an analytical standpoint, commentators on Chicago’s politics increasingly described a “closed system”: emerging trends in Chicago politics were invariably outgrowths of previous local developments. The machine’s fixity and influence on local political culture were so profound that external influences—or for that matter, any radical departure from past practice—was impossible. This view of Chicago politics was certainly unsettled by the Harold Washington movement and mayoralty. Not only did Washington pose a profound threat to the inheritors of the Daley machine; the Washington administration’s “urban populism” was aligned with insurgent, typically neighborhood-based political movements in several U.S. cities.6 However, following Harold Washington’s death in 1987 and the subsequent political ascendance of Richard M. Daley, various features of the “default view” of Chicago politics have returned: Richard M.Daley is loyally carrying through the agenda of his father; Chicago is governed by a permanently entrenched political machine (albeit a political machine lacking strong ward organizations and with a limited capacity to deliver large numbers of voters to the polls); as political boss of Chicago, Richard M. Daley’s power is unchallengeable.7 This chapter is an exercise in interpreting Richard M. Daley’s now twodecade -long mayoralty without recourse to the default perspective. How Daley has led Chicago is discussed against the context of evolving mayoral practice across the United States. Contemporary Chicago’s self-promotion as a global city is also examined, with the particular aims of identifying how 244 Larry Bennett this policy vision emerged, the salient features of Richard M. Daley’s administration ’s engagement with globalization, and the local effects of implementing the policies that advance this vision.8 The discussion of Chicago particulars is further connected to a framework for interpreting mayoral initiatives across the field of U.S.cities.Most assuredly,contemporary trends in Chicago cannot be understood without harboring a healthy respect for the undead hand of the local past.But just as surely...