Charter Reform in Chicago

A fresh look at the question of why charter reform failed in Chicago when it succeeded in other large cities across the country.

Political scientists have tried to understand the failure of Chicago’s charter reform movement through simplistic paradigms developed in studies of other cities. Flanagan, however, argues that Chicago, like all cities, has its own political culture, the result of forces and circumstances unique to the area.

Many factors joined to doom the charter—but most important, Flanagan suggests, was the preponderance of upper-class, pro-business delegates on the Chicago New Charter Convention. Under their leadership, the convention produced a charter that ignored the concerns of many of the city’s voters. Its defeat left the city an unwieldy mixture of localized taxing entities, virtually mandating the development of the Machine.