For far too long, the South Side of Chicago had not received the investment that it deserves.
But when the Obama Presidential Center opens in June, it will mark the beginning of a new day for the proud residents of a community that the Obamas and I call home.
As a child of the South Side, I have seen the incredible potential in this community, particularly the resilience of its people. I’ve also seen great ideas, sparks of progress and coordinated efforts to lift up our neighborhoods — but until now, I have not seen the realization of our collective vision for a resurgence on this scale.
When the center opens, it will be a unique catalyst not just for these neighborhoods but also for a newly energized Chicago in the years ahead.
I am confident that our permanent home for hope will earn its reputation for being both a world-class cultural institution and the premier incubator for strategies to mobilize ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
But we have work to do to achieve our ambitious goals. This is true, whether here at the Obama Presidential Center or to all Chicagoans who believe in the future of this great city.
We began with 5,000 construction and related jobs. We recently hired 150 people for full-time, permanent jobs, and in both cases, we prioritized hiring from the communities near campus.
Those employees will help welcome the millions of guests who will be traveling from across the country, and the world, over the next quarter century to visit the Obama Presidential Center. Many of those guests will have never been to the city’s South Side, or even Chicago, before.
The Obama Presidential Center will serve as a home for our programs that train future leaders in Chicago and the world to meet the challenges of their day. In this way, I believe the center can also become a model and a lab for other partnerships and programs, a place where people can learn and test new ideas to then take to their own communities — whether it be in Chicago or beyond.
But our work doesn’t end within the confines of our campus.
By 2050, we will have encouraged the millions of visitors who come to the Obama Presidential Center to explore the adjoining Griffin Museum of Science and Industry and our spectacular lakefront. We will have marketed the many shops, restaurants and other cultural institutions in the surrounding community and throughout our city so that they, too, flourish.
In the decades to come, we want to see a ripple effect that starts with an increase in tourism that leads to more investment and job creation throughout Chicagoland, which in turn brings much needed revenue into our city and our businesses. That then becomes a catalyst for public and private investments in the city’s neighborhoods, public schools, public safety, public transit, infrastructure, sustainability and much more.
This essay is part of a series developed in collaboration with World Business Chicago wherein accomplished authors envision what Chicago could and should look like in 2050.
In 2050, the central business district will be flourishing again with new and expanded businesses filling up vacant office space, new market-rate and affordable housing will have been constructed, and there will have been countless improvements and additions to our many cultural institutions and parks. Our richly diverse neighborhoods will also attract visitors from around the world who will find a place that reminds them of home. All of this progress radiating out across Chicago will have earned the city an even greater reputation as a world-class destination.
After all, Chicago is the place that proudly makes no little plans.
In fact, if you have driven down South Stony Island Avenue lately, you may have noticed the letters at the top of our presidential center. They spell out a message drawn from President Barack Obama’s speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches.
It reads, in part: “Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
It may be difficult to quantify what it will mean to the South Side of Chicago to see that calling every day. My hope is that in the years leading up to 2050, those who live in Chicago or are visiting our great city see those words as motivation to take the baton and run with it to confront the challenges of their time and make change — together.
Because I know that by working together, ordinary people here and around the world will have done extraordinary things.
Valerie Jarrett is CEO of the Obama Foundation and the author of the New York Times bestselling book “Finding My Voice.” She grew up on Chicago’s South Side.
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