CHICAGO—If you had $1.3 million to improve your neighborhood, how would you spend it? Chicago's aldermen face a similar question each year when deciding how to spend their "menu money," the funding allocated by the city to each of its wards for capital infrastructure projects. [RETURN TO ARTICLE]
Get the Latest News & Updates
This form needs Javascript to display, which your browser doesn't support. Sign up here instead
Also by Robin Peterson
-
Excommunicated Over Abortion
A nun's decision to save a life angers a U.S. bishop.
MORE » -
Choose Your Own Budget
Chicagoans cut out the elected middle man to improve their neighborhood with $1.3 million in taxes.
MORE » -
Slow Food vs. the City of Chicago
Behind the culinary times, Windy City bureaucrats crack down on canning and charcuteries.
MORE »
MOST READ
- Farmer Plants First Industrial Hemp Crop in 50 Years
- 40-Day Strike Ends in Victory for Dockworkers
- Party-Crashing for the Climate; Indignados Turn Two; Bus Ads Promote Equal Rights for Palestinians
- Alt Press Pick of the Week: Calling Out Sexism on the Left
- We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
- Bring on the Trash
- How Chicago Workers Went From Occupation to Cooperative
- McSexist
- If West, Texas Had Been a Terrorist Attack
- Foreclosing in on D.C.



Reader Comments
Alinsky did broadly the same thing—and got the same eager reaction—when he organised Chicago’s “Back Of The Yards” area. The first Community Congress, in 1939, was an eye-opener for the community leadership. It’s well worth reading about.
Posted by Mairead on May 17, 2010 at 9:45 AM