Maggie Daley Park is under construction in Chicago. (Rendering: MVVA)

In times of tightening municipal budgets and cuts in federal funding, some City Halls get to make budgeting decisions with only local scrutiny from the city’s media and community activists. But in Chicago, two vastly different cultural scenes are making national headlines. As the city embarks on one of its biggest cultural booms in decades — with new parks, museums and festivals — stories about the felling of young citizens by gang gunshots reach from Boston to L.A.

In June, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that Chicago would become the home of Star Wars creator George Lucas’ Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Then, during theJuly 4th weekend, 60 people were shot and nine killed, throwing the city under a wide critical spotlight. (To be sure, Chicago is not the most violent city, as a recent Pew Research Center study details.)

Newspaper editorials and some local politicians insist that Mayor Rahm Emanuel should focus on repairing gang-infested areas and improving the battered public school system. Yet many activists in the communities vying for some of the planned cultural institutions say that art and culture can be a major factor in renewing neighborhoods.....Continue Reading

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