Metropolis Strategies to conclude its operations

CHICAGO, March 20, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Metropolis Strategies, which was founded 15 years ago by The Commercial Club of Chicago to enhance the economic vibrancy of the Chicago region, will conclude its operations on May 31.  This is in accord with the Club's intent that Metropolis would have a limited life rather than be a permanent organization.  In accordance with its long standing practice of transferring successful programs to other organizations, Metropolis's work will continue.

"Metropolis has achieved specific results because of its ability to bring diverse voices to the table," said George A. Ranney, who has served as President and CEO since the organization's founding.  "With the assistance of many partners, we have succeeded in meeting goals set by the Commercial Club and our board of civic leaders.  We close with enthusiasm for the future of the Chicago region."

The Commercial Club of Chicago published Chicago Metropolis 2020, which included an assessment of the condition of the region and a series of recommendations for improvement.  This served as the blueprint for the new Chicago Metropolis 2020 organization, which the Club founded in 1999. In 2011, Chicago Metropolis was invited to become a supporting organization of the Chicago Community Trust and changed its name to Metropolis Strategies. 

Andrew J. McKenna, Founding Chairman, said, "I am confident  that the individuals who advanced Metropolis's work and helped change the way the region thinks and acts will remain involved, working with partners who have come to trust and respect them." 

Three characteristics have distinguished Metropolis from many non-profits:

1. Metropolis was founded by and enjoyed the support of corporate leaders.   Fifty percent of the board members are members of The Commercial Club.  The other directors are representatives of organized labor, faith communities, suburban mayors and other government officials, universities and civic organizations.  This combination of constituencies has been essential to the organization's effectiveness.
2. Four senior executives, all Commercial Club members, donated their time to day-to-day leadership.  They worked with a small expert staff.
3. At its creation, its founders at the Commercial Club stipulated that Metropolis was to have a limited life span.  This was to avoid duplication of organizations over the long term. 

"Knowing Metropolis was going to be on the scene for a limited time energized our work, added a dimension of urgency and gave us the freedom to make waves when necessary,"  said Donald G. Lubin, Chairman, Metropolis Strategies.

Metropolis has already transferred its work on workforce housing and early childhood education to other organizations.  Many of Metropolis's policies on economic development are being implemented by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, World Business Chicago, and the Cook County Council of Economic Advisors. 

The justice and violence policy work will continue in another venue.  Many of its initiatives are being implemented by:  the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council, the Juvenile Redeploy Illinois Oversight Board, the Adult Redeploy Illinois Oversight Board, and the Illinois Risk, Assets, Needs Assessment Advisory Board. Metropolis's work on sustainability will be based at The Chicago Community Trust.  Similar transitions are under way for the Metropolis programs on transportation. 

SHORT LIST OF METROPOLIS INITIATIVES, ALL ACCOMPLISHED WITH PARTNERS:

• Creation of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, which for the first time integrated land use and transportation planning and rationalized the region's approach to investments in transportation and other critical public programs.
• Improved transportation, starting with passage of an $8 billion transportation bond program in 1999.  Other important work on transportation included leadership to ensure that the region remains the premier center for freight in North America; serving as Co-chair of the Governor's task force to propose a new system for transit governance and investment for Northeastern Illinois, and Co-chairing a commission that recommended an innovative design for a tollway to break a long-standing impasse over an extension of Route 53 in Lake County.
• Recognition of and focus on the region's declining economic growth rate in the decade from 2000 to 2010, and helping to follow up this decline by supporting new economic growth plans and public-private institutions for Cook County, the City of Chicago, and most recently the metropolitan region.
• Helping develop the 2008 Chicago Climate Action Plan; organizing the 2012 Chicago Region's "Green" Economic Opportunities report, which identifies new opportunities for energy and resource efficiency businesses; and mobilizing universities and hospitals to address shared sustainability issues.
• Bringing together business leaders with early childhood advocates to create Illinois' Preschool for All program, which significantly raised the State's funding commitment for pre-school children; and creating the Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map with the University of Illinois.
• Encouraging the reopening of the state's shuttered Sheridan Correctional Center as a national model drug treatment center with an after care re-entry program.
• Developing several juvenile justice system reforms, including creation of the rehabilitation-focused Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, and achieving a dramatic reduction in the number of children in state prisons due to new programs including  Redeploy Illinois, which enables counties to provide rehabilitative services for juveniles locally instead of sending them to more expensive, remote and counter-productive state prisons.
• Supporting the extension of the Redeploy model with the creation of an Adult Redeploy Illinois program, which has helped reduce prison overcrowding. 
• Creating and staffing the bi-partisan Criminal Law Edit, Alignment and Reform (CLEAR) Commission, for the first rewrite of the Criminal Code in nearly 50 years, making it shorter, less complex, and easier to understand.
• Developing a series of Homes for a Changing Region reports that focused attention on how current demands for housing are not aligned with supply, due to government restrictions, leading to passage of programs in 23 municipalities permitting new opportunities for workforce housing.
• Developing a Next Century Conservation plan with Openlands that the Cook County Forest Preserves Commissioners have unanimously approved as the official guide for their policies and future investments.
• Calling public attention to the heritage of, and future need for, comprehensive planning by organizing a yearlong celebration of the 100^th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago.
• Bringing together a diverse, bi-partisan coalition of groups to change the culture of corruption that flourished in Illinois state government.  The resulting CHANGE Illinois coalition was responsible for enacting the state's first law limiting campaign contributions and establishing the foundation for the current campaign for a state constitutional amendment to create an independent commission to draw legislative district boundaries, opening the way for General Assemblies far more likely to enact reforms for which Metropolis has been providing leadership over the past 15 years.

SOURCE Metropolis Strategies