IN ongoing
prime-time public forums
that inform, INSPIRE AND MOBILIZE
ALL CHICAGOANS
CITIZENS, POLICE, CITY HALL
TO make chicago
safe
IT ALL BEGINS WITH THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA
TO WHICH MOST CHICAGOANS TURN DAILY FOR
THEIR LOCAL NEWS, SPORTS AND WEATHER
THE NEWSCASTS AIRED BY
THESE STATIONS HAVE ALWAYS
REPORTED ON VIOLENCE.
TV NEWS COVERS DAILY
INSTANCES OF VIOLENCE.
NOW THESE STATIONS CAN ALSO
BECAUSE IN THE DIGITAL AGE,
OWNERSHIP OF THE DIGITAL DEVICES THAT
MAKE CHICAGO EITHER VIOLENT OR SAFE IS
CITYWIDE. FOR THIS REASON, CHICAGO MUST ADDRESS
ITS VIOLENCE AS A CONNECTED, INFORMED
DIGITAL AGE COMMUNITY
(OTHERWISE SWEET HOME CHICAGO
REMAINS VIOLENT)
CONNECT
CHICAGOANS AND CITY HALL
SO CHICAGO CAN
MAKE ITSELF SAFE
SO welcome!
This site is about getting past unworkable Industrial Age ways of addressing violence in Chicago and finding Digital Age ways that work.
Everything here follows from three premises:
-
Digital age problems require digital age solutions.
-
Public (citizen) participation is key to digital age public safety.
-
Commercial media can profit handsomely by using their resources to help keep their communities safe.
The site shows how outmoded Industrial-Age Crime/Violence Reduction ways of addressing ADULT crime are unworkable and counterproductive in addressing Digital Age gang/drug/gun/YOUTH violence. They backfire. They make Chicago violent.
Once Chicago gets past Violence Reduction, it will realize that ALL ALONG it could have used its digital age communications resources (organized around its network TV stations) to connect ALL Chicagoans - citizens, police, City Hall - to make itself SAFE.
Four decades into the Digital Age, Chicago's challenge today is to exit the Industrial Age and (belatedly) enter the Digital Age in the field of public safety. To see Chicago's steps and missteps in its halting evolution towards viable digital age public safety policies, check out our
SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE ABOUT HOW CHICAGO
CAN EVOLVE DELIBERATELY AND CONSTRUCTIVELY.
MORE ABOUT HOW DIGITAL AGE
CHICAGO CAN
MAKE ITSELF SAFE
PAST
1909
DANIEL BURNHAM
ROLE MODEL
Chicago's Industrial-Age City Planner Helps Digital-age Chicago Make Itself SAFE
BURNHAM INSISTED in his 1909 Plan of Chicago that "GOOD CITIZENSHIP is the prime object of good city planning." Today Chicago urgently needs a DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE to do for the city what Burnham's PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE has always done: help create a world-class city of citizens who love Sweet Home Chicago. And with digital citizenship comes responsibiity for PUBLIC SAFETY.
PRESENT
2022
CHICAGO SAFE THEORY
How Chicago's Digital-Age Communications Resources Can Help Make Chicago SAFE
Chicago can replace its failed, top-down struggle to merely REDUCE its violence with a top-down, bottom-up, media-based strategy to make Chicago SAFE. TRUSTWORTHY media programs and content can bring out the BEST in Chicago, not the WORST, as has been happening for decades at City Hall, among Chicagoans and in the media of Chicago's digital-age public communications system.
NEAR FUTURE
2023
CHICAGO SAFE
PRACTICE
TWO CHAIRS
For Two Feuding City Leaders Who Haven't Cooperated. Until Now.
CHICAGO SAFE can launch with TWO CHAIRS, a three- minute TV news feature guaranteed to surprise and amaze. It gets feuding Chicago leaders work- ing together, with citizen input, to make Chicago SAFE. TWO CHAIRS also launches Chicago's DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE, which in time will be as meaningful and unifying to Chicagoans as the telecasts of the city's beloved pro sport teams.