Chicago Plan Commission
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The Chicago Plan Commission is a commission implemented to champion the enactment of the Burnham Plan as published in The Plan of Chicago. On July 6, 1909, the City Council of Chicago authorized that Mayor Fred A. Busse appoint the members of the Chicago Plan Commission. On November 1, 1909, the City Council approved Mayor Busse's appointment of the 328 men selected as members of the Commission - men broadly representative of all the business and social interests of the city. Charles H. Wacker was appointed permanent chairman by the Mayor. Walter Moody was the managing director of the Chicago Plan Commission for 9 years ending in 1920. He was succeeded for 22 years by Eugene Taylor.
Moody was renowned for his ingenuity as a spokesperson for the Plan. The Encyclopedia of Chicago recounts one of his more successful acts of salesmanship: "Moody, the salesman nonpareil, even raised the enactment of the Plan to a sacred calling. On Sunday, January 19, 1919, some eighty Chicago churches participated in what were called "Nehemiah Day" services. The ministers of these congregations agreed to take the words of the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, "Therefore we, His servants, will arise and build," as the basis of their sermons, in which they would advocate the implementation of the Plan of Chicago."
The name of Chicago Plan Commission has persisted through a number of successive administrative reorganizations, including the establishment of the Chicago Department of City Planning in 1957, which itself has undergone multiple permutations. Today the Chicago Plan Commission is part of the city of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development. The Commission was successful at fostering relationships with politicians of several types and at encouraging the electorate to support its initiatives financially. Chicagoans approved eighty-six Plan-related bond issues covering some seventeen different projects.
[edit] External links
Encyclopedia of Chicago Online Plan Implementation
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