Monorail

The fictional people of Springfield are well known to be rubes. Perhaps that is why they were so easily taken in by the slick presentation of Lyle Lanley. The townspeople, their hope-filled eyes gleaming, imagined that building the monorail would create jobs and put Springfield on the map as Lanley claims it did for towns like Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook. They sacrificed time, labor, opportunity cost and the city treasury to fulfill that novel dream. Of course, the monorail turned out to be a grift and the project a failure. But, even at its best the monorail was little more than a publicity stunt: a support to buttress the civic pride of Springfield's rubes.

The Olympics aren't much different. They're expensive, time consuming and fiscally draining. They're basically a multi-billion dollar, bloated photo-op for the host city. I love my city and its people, but we've exhibited time and again a capacity for being rubes with a depressed sense of civic pride. Chicago did not need the Olympics. Perhaps Beijing needed them to demonstrate that China is more than just smog and political repression. Rio can show what is has to offer besides scantily clad women, violence and homeless children.

Meanwhile, at home, we still need to improve our transportation infrastructure, build affordable housing and the city still has that new piece of lakefront property to develop. Now we should look forward and work up to our potential as a community. Not so that the world will come to Chicago, but for the world that is already here.