Municipal History and Present Organization of the City of Chicago (Volume 2, No. 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVII. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MUNICIPAL CHICAGO. The attitude of the public mind toward the American cities is one of reform and reorganization. This view becomes more critical upon a closer examination into the organic relations of the institutions of the city, and into the policies that dominate the administration. Elements of disturbance and weakness are prominent, and general administrative confusion threatens a uniform and harmonious expansion of the municipal life and institutions. The historian of municipal institutions is not unprepared for this discovery. Below the chaos that has characterized American municipal development is discerned the struggle of forces, which, in the absence of systematic control, have expressed themselves in disorganized and discordant facts. Silent and unnoticed the dynamics of modern society have wrought their changes in the institutional structure of the city. The American cities have been the great sufferers from the expansive and mobile nature of western life; they have been planted and deyelepedin response to industrialism and in the absence, of a deep _. concern for the problems incident to urban centers. The industrial location of Chicago has brought to the city a full measure of these threatening conditions. Eliminating from the present consideration the abuses of mal-administration and suggestions of municipal dishonesty, the development of the institutional life of the city has created administrative chaos and confusion in many of their most chronic phases. The problem of the organic reconstruction of the administrative institutions within the municipal area is presented in the following facts: Partially or wholly.within the municipal area of Chicago are operating as independent administrative authoritie...