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Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ Yeah really. I don't see the "slippery slope" people keep whining about. It's not as if Presidents and billionaires propose massive museums on Chicago parkland more than once in a century.
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Exactly, oh no! Now every billionaire and president will want to dump hundreds of millions of dollars into Chicago!
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron38
What makes you think it'll stop with billionaires building libraries. Des Plaines just voted to hand park land over to a Mariano's for a driveway and parking lot. Precedent has been set, if parkland can be used for economic development it will be.
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See, that's the problem with slippery slope arguments, they are invalid. Chicago is not Des Plaines, Chicago is not giving parkland to Marianos. Chicago has not given park land to anyone except non profit foundations supporting the legacy of two of the most influential people of the past 40 years. There is no precedent being set here for commercial interests to take park land nor will there be unless we start giving parkland to commercial interests which has. not. happened.
The only precedent being set here is that Chicago will, as it always has, bend over backwards to get things done when it just makes sense. Both of these projects are no-brainer wins for the city. So the only message we are sending is that if you are rich, powerful, and influential and want to give Chicago a big fucking gift, then we'll take it. I don't exactly see a problem with sending that message.
The precedent of giving parkland to museums was already set over the past 100+ years by AIC, Field Museum, Shedd, Adler, Mexican Museum of Fine Art, etc, etc, etc. My question to everyone complaining about "precedent" is: How is this anything new? We've literally been doing it since our earliest days as a city.