They should put their efforts into other things. Ill. It also favors investment in a high-speed rail network linking Chicago and other Midwest regions. Jackson hasn't warmed to our suggestion that he should take the lead to assure that his district capitalize on its extraordinary grid of railroads, highways and waterways. Located along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, Chicago's Southland is the freight hub of North America, handling growing volumes of cargo. We say government should build on this economic base by encouraging the development of warehousing, distribution facilities and even manufacturing plants that could put thousands of acres of brownfields back on the tax rolls.
Politicians promote airports and roads because they're government-owned.
Elected officials are in the business of rewarding friends and campaign contributors with jobs and contracts and, of course, guaranteeing their own re-election. And that scheme leaves most local governments between a rock and a hard place. The trouble with this airport debate is that it keeps getting in the way of many of the things that we should be talking about to take the Chicago region forward. We need a jobs program for the Illinois Second Congressional District, quality jobs not new jails. A skillful orator who enunciates every syllable, Jackson was applying a new, and perhaps impossible, twist to an old formula.