By Marvin Miller, AIB President
On Tuesday, September 7, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he would not seek another term as mayor. When he completes his sixth term next May, “His Honor” will have served as mayor for 22 years, a record for the city and one that eclipses his father’s record service by a year
The City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District, and Mayor Daley, himself, welcomed America in Bloom to its second Annual Symposium in 2003. The Mayor was our welcoming keynote speaker that year. He told us that he loved flowers, but that, quite frankly, he could not sell city beautification to the City Council or the taxpayers on that fact. Instead, he said, I sell beautification because it’s good for the city. Green spaces are not only good environmentally, but also economically, socially, psychologically, and more.
News of Mayor Daley’s decision not to seek a seventh term was the only front page story in the Chicago Tribune the next morning. The paper devoted two-thirds of the front page to a full-color, close-up photo of the Mayor from his tie knot up. Stories continued for the next nine pages as well as on both editorial pages of Section 1.
A stunning full-color shot of Chicago’s skyline taken from Millennium Park, which was not yet officially open in 2003, highlighted page 3, with the title “Chicago reshaped, mostly for the better.” (We did have some Symposium receptions in completed parts of that park in 2003.) This article highlighted many of the Mayor’s qualities. Included in the list of attributes was he “…ruled Chicago with an iron fist and a green thumb, often using the power of the former to carry out the agenda of the latter.” The article, by Blair Kamin, noted that during the Mayor’s 21-year reign to date, 600,000 trees have been planted, more than 85 miles of landscaped medians have been constructed, and more than 7 million square feet of green roofs have been built. Kamin noted that, “All that greenery represented Daley’s effort to transform Chicago from a City Functional, where utilitarian concerns were paramount, into a City Beautiful, where quality-of-life issues carried equal weight.”
The New York Times also featured an article on the Mayor in the Sunday, September 12 edition. Almost every paragraph of Susan Saulny’s article spoke of green spaces, parks, flowers, and/or landscaping. Saulny noted it took, “…a measure of willpower to transform the ‘hog butcher of the world,’ as Chicago was known around the middle of the last century, into one of the most forward-looking of cities, with an abundance of public art and green space alongside an ever-expanding skyline.”

These two articles, as well as many others from around the country, capture the essence of Mayor Daley and of America in Bloom. Increased green spaces yield an improved economy. Quality-of-life issues matter, and horticulture can help provide that measure.