Book explores how Plan of Chicago could have used a woman's touch
While historians across Chicago and the suburbs are celebrating the centennial of Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett's Plan of Chicago, at least one person is looking at the set of documents through a more skeptical lens.
Janice Metzger, 59, is the author of "What Would Jane Say?" a book that explores what dozens of women activists of the early 1900s would have contributed to the plan.
"One thing that struck me early on was people seem to really revere the Burnham plan," said Karen Stonehouse, president of the Wheaton-based Illinois chapter of the American Planning Association. "I think folks haven't necessarily thought about some of the things that should have been in there."
The plan focused on Chicago, but outlined ideas for forest preserve land that surrounds the city in suburban Cook and DuPage counties. It also listed preliminary thoughts for the highway and tollway systems that connect the suburbs and the city.
Metzger's book adds five aspects of urban life - housing and neighborhood development, immigration and labor, justice, education and public health - to the topics of transportation and park system development already covered in the plan.
She wrote most of the book, which came out this week, in a style called speculative nonfiction. She used direct quotes, paraphrases and inferences from the published views of women such as Jane Addams, Julia Lathrop and Lucy Flower to describe how she thinks they would have felt about civic and social issues.
"Jane and the settlement folks really decided to be of the people, living with the immigrants and taking on their struggles," said Metzger, of Chicago. "The Burnham Plan is really above the people, even the drawings show that; they're these bird's-eye views. The plan is about the physical characteristics of the land, it's not about the people."
Metzger said Burnham planed large scale, focusing on roadway, highway, freight and park systems, while Addams and other women made small-scale improvements to neighborhood parks, child care and community health. "If we're spending small amounts of money on very effectively targeted improvements in our region, we could really improve the quality of life," she said. "But if we've got this idea that everything has to be big or it's not worthwhile, we're going to miss the opportunity to do small things that would really help people."
Settlement house supporters also had different visions for the city because of the people they knew, Metzger said.
"The other thing that was interesting about the women was their networks crossed class and race, which the businessmen did not," Metzger said. "The women had this attitude that the vulnerabilities of any one of us becomes the vulnerability of all of us."
While Addams emphasized the community aspect of planning, Burnham emphasized the design element, Stonehouse said.
"We need big and small plans," Stonehouse said. "If we don't have both, we're missing something."
Heather Smith, planning director at the Center for New Urbanism and adjunct faculty member at DePaul University in Chicago, said people need to view the Plan of Chicago as a product of its time and remember that deep social gaps existed between classes, races and genders.
"The plan was written by wealthy business elites," Smith said. "That was the audience that could put forth a grand plan for the region."
"What Would Jane Say?" concludes with a letter Addams could have written to Burnham had these women truly met to discuss topics they would have added to a city plan.
"This is not about women versus men. This is not that women are good and men are bad," Metzger said. "Not only were the women really exceptional - I wouldn't want to be held to their standards for sure - but the men were exceptional in a different way."