When Chicago Mayor Richard Daley made achieving sustainability -- and especially improving water stewardship -- a citywide priority, critics said business would suffer, taxes would rise, and jobs would run. As it turns out, the critics were exactly wrong.
"The situation is much clearer today," Mayor Daley told a conference of Great Lakes mayors in 2004. "We have learned that protecting the environment makes sense both economically and politically. We've learned over the past 15 years that you can actually save money on taxes, business, and household expense by basically paying attention to the environment."
"When we let stormwater run into the ground rather than the sewers we save money on sewer repairs and cut down flooding," the mayor told me after his speech. "When we adopt road-building techniques that keep salt, soil, and gas from flowing into our lakes and rivers we keep our beaches clean and save money on water treatment. When we help business improve their manufacturing process to reduce water use they save money, which keeps them competitive and strenghtens the overall economy."
"At the same time," Mayor Daley added, "we enhance our quality of life, which builds pride in our communities and helps us attract new employers, residents, and tourists, all ingredients of a strong local economy."
Those comments came some two years ago now. But the Mayor's work continues to gain widespread attention. Friend and colleague Keith Schneider recently published a piece in the New York Times highlighting the Mayor's plan to turn Chicago into the "greenest city in America." And Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen recently published an article in the Washington Post describing how the mayor's ideas are moving into the mainstream.
