Part 1: The Missing Voice of the Burnham Plan - Jan Metzger

Ms. Metzger will survey some of the achievements of Jane Addams and the large network of women active in 1909, with particular emphasis on their ability to create great impact with small investments. Burnham’s plan established expensive infrastructure (big plans) as the pinnacle of urban planning, but omitted investment in the region’s residents. To this day we live with the consequences of those lost opportunities.

For one hundred years Chicagoans have honored the mantra Burnham is said to have offered: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” City-building contemporaries of Burnham, people with substantial contributions to urban institutions and urban planning, were not accounted for in that statement or in the development of his Plan of Chicago. The missing voices belonged to women, who in spite of inventing urban institutions and establishing reforms to improve urban life, were invisible to Burnham and the Commercial Club of 1909.

The program is based on the forthcoming book, What Would Jane Say, by Janice Metzger. The book focuses on how Jane Addams and other progressive women of her time would respond to the Burnham Plan, which was largely a physical plan rooted in the "City Beautiful" movement.

Many civic leaders active in reform movements at that time of the Plan subscribed to a different theory, explicitly or implicitly – the theory of the "city as home." They believed that answers to urban disharmony and blight involved reforming systems of urban sanitation, juvenile justice, public health, industrial and labor relations, and educational deficiencies.Many civic leaders active in reform movements at the time of the Plan--including Hull-House founder Jane Addams--subscribed, explicitly or implicitly, to the theory of "city as home."

Jan Metzger

Jan Metzger has worked on city-building efforts of the last three decades, including Mayor Washington’s school reform summit, affordable housing, environmental issues and transportation reform. She is a Senior Project Manager at the Center for Neighborhood Technology and author of several CNT reports on planning, including “Planning Matters” and “Changing Direction: Transportation Choices for 2030.”

Free; donations welcome. RSVP's requested at 312.413.5353