Mayor Daley Will Not Run: Chicago Without Daley? Unthinkable

Mayor Daley 

Wow. Mayor Richard J. Daley Jr., is done? Chicago without Daley is unthinkable. For 35 of my 48 years on Earth, Chicago has been ran by a Daley. After Richard M. Daley steps down, no longer.

When this blogger was born on August 4th 1962, Chicago's Mayor was Richard J. Daley. He had already served as Mayor since 1955. In Mayor Daley Senior's Chicago, the subway expansion effectively connected the Northside and the Southside, a new McCormick Place Convention Center rose to replace the one that burned down, and a city that once called itself The Second City, slowly started to think of itself as first.

When Daley Sr. passed of a heart attack in 1974, it seemed as if Chicago itself stopped working. There was the disaster that was Janye Byrne's time as Mayor. And before that, there was Michael Bilandic, who's inability to deal with a massive snow storm cost him the 1978 election.

The one bright spot between the Daleys, Mayor Harold Washington, Chicago's first black Mayor, passed of a heart attack in 1987. Then Daley Jr. ran for election in 1989, and served for 20 years.

Over that span of time, Mayor Daley oversaw the transformation of my hometown from a manufacturing city to a service city, with the North Loop developed into a major site of small boutique firms and hip restaurants.

Chicago completed its long standing, ambitious plan to redevelop the lakefront. And Chicago became a city to be in, rather than a city to pass through.

Yes, it has it's crime problems. But overall, the Chicago of today is better than the Chicago of 20 years ago. Much of that credit has to go to "Richy Jr."