Chicago's 'People Plazas' Lacking a Key Ingredient

The Chicago Tribune's editorial board revisits the "people plazas" ideas put forward by Mayor Rahm Emanuel as a way to reinvigorate vacant city-owned lots. The ideas as to create live music venues and art exhibits, and offer a place to "gather, mingle, shop at pop-up stores, dance even" in residential neighborhoods.

The editorial board offers a blunt assessment of the people plazas program, however: "Almost two years later, there's something missing from the people plazas. People." The editorial provides more background on how the program was meant to launch and operate:

The program was supposed to transform 49 pieces of vacant or underused city-owned land into gathering places "that reflect the unique and dynamic cultures of the various neighborhoods," according to the city's bidding documents. The hope was that the plazas would eventually become self-sustaining — companies would be permitted to advertise at the plazas, as well as sell food or merchandise. The city would get a 10 percent cut of the net profits, and the company hired to make the people plaza project happen, Latent Design, would get the rest.

The Tribune has found no evidence that the program has achieved even middling success. So far the city has spent $164,000 on the program while raising only $8,000 in revenue. The editorial thus suggests that both the Mayor's Office and the alderman with people plazas in their districts apply more pressure for results.

[Ed's note: the Tribune says the people plaza program was launched in 2015, but we see evidence of the term dating back to 2013.]