The Cities That Work Series: The media response to the Annual Luncheon
This year's Annual Luncheon was extremely well attended, with 950 guests filling the Hyatt Regency Chicago's Regency Ballroom—including representatives from 19 different media outlets—to hear the mayors of Milwaukee, Gary and Chicago discuss mega-regional priorities.
Many of the reporters covered the event, helping to perpetuate the conversation about the value of mega-regional planning. For your reading pleasure:
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel featured two articles about the Annual Luncheon. Milwaukee touts its water resources at Chicago conference references Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's discussion of the "Fresh Coast" and Milwaukee's future-focused water technology sector. A second article, Chicago mayor a no-show at regional cooperation conference, noted Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's inability to join the discussion due to a late-running City Council meeting.
This topic also was featured in Chicago Tribune's Emanuel misses first regional planning meeting; Crain's Chicago Business's Greg Hinz blog post, Rahm stiffs luncheon on regional cooperation; and Forbes' Midwest Mayors Vow Cooperation—Minus Rahm. Emanuel sent his regrets and later committed to join his fellow mayors to work toward regional coordination.
The Times of Northwest Indiana's Mayors: Collaboration needed to improve tri-state region focused on Gary's dynamic Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson. WBEZ aired a fun riff on Mayor Barrett's point that we must re-market our mega-region rather than accept how we've been branded by "outsiders," in Good-bye 'Rust Belt,' hello 'Fresh Coast'.
As more and more articles come out on the Annual Luncheon, they will be featured here on this blog post, so stay tuned and join the conversation!
Update, 7/27:
Region's Mayors Work Together On Jobs, Patch.com
Mayor aims to partner with area mayors, Gary Crusader
Regional learning needed for Gary development, mayor says, The Times of NWI
'Da region' is bigger than Northwest Indiana, The Times of NWI