Edge city or bust: dismantling a regime of aesthetic governmentality in Oak Brook, Illinois

ABSTRACT

This article examines the construction and dismantling of a regime of “aesthetic governmentality” in Oak Brook, Illinois. This regime consists not only of policy and law, but more importantly of a way of seeing and evaluating Oak Brook’s idyllic suburban landscape. Drawing on interview and archival data, the case is made that the power of this longstanding regime has begun to decline in recent years, making space for new ways of understanding life in Oak Brook and for new social and political priorities. These changes have shifted the balance of power away from the small, affluent residential population and toward the demands of local business interests (including several multinational corporations). The article concludes with the cautionary argument that the dismantling of this regime may simply displace one kind of exclusion in favor of another.

KEYWORDS:

• Edge city
• suburb
• governmentality
• aesthetics

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Don Mitchell, Bob Lake, Asher Ghertner, Hudson McFann, and Sean Tanner for providing feedback on earlier versions of this article. All errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Interview subjects were initially approached based on their ability to contribute specific knowledge, best illustrated among interviewees by presidents of homeowners associations (five), village officials (three), prominent members of the chamber of commerce (four), and corporate executives (three). Interview sessions ranged from roughly 15 minutes to several hours.

2. Klutznick held a number of positions in the federal government throughout his lengthy public service career, including serving as a commissioner of the Federal Public Housing Authority (1944–1946) and Secretary of Commerce (1980–1981) (Oliver, 1999; Pace, 1999). He was also a developer of commercial real estate, and would later construct the famed Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue in Chicago (1975), among other projects.

3. Illinois State law provided for the de-annexation of properties from one municipality and simultaneous annexation to another, provided that sufficient support, in the form of signatures, from owners of the property could be had. As Klutznick had always intended to work with Butler, and as he feared his property stood to be taxed more heavily if it remained with the cash-strapped Oakbrook Terrace (according to Barton, 1990 and local accounts, this support was easily garnered.

4. This state of affairs remains in effect, reportedly saving many Oak Brook residents tens of thousands of dollars per year.

5. As of the 2010 US Census, the median value of Oak Brook homes was $845,400. The median value of Oakbrook Terrace homes was $340,400. The percentage of renter-occupied housing units in Oak Brook was a mere 1.7%, while in Oakbrook Terrace it was 52.1%.

6. 10,000 residents was the rough “limit” that Butler and others agreed would preserve the revenue situation (Anonymous, personal communication, 6 July 2011).

7. At the time of this research, all but two village officials were nonresidents.

8. Frank Calabrese Sr., a longtime resident of Oak Brook and notorious Chicago racketeer, was sentenced to life imprisonment and a share (along with codefendants) of $27.2 million in forfeiture and restitution for his role in 14 area murders and other crimes (Lee & Sardovi, 2010).

9. Comments such as, “My mom always says that a lot of doctors live there” (Anonymous, personal communication, 14 June 2011) were relatively commonplace in my conversations with nonresidents. It is indeed true that a number of high-profile physicians call Oak Brook home. Current Village President Gopal Lalmalani, for instance, is a practicing cardiologist.

10. The lack of sidewalks, discussed below, facilitates this privacy. Several people I spoke with remarked on having never met nor even seen their nearest neighbors.

11. A personal friend of Paul Butler told me a story in which Butler stood gazing fondly and contemplatively toward 22nd Street near sunset, the lights from its offices, shops, and street lamps just beginning to glow. In a telling performance of the relationship between Oak Brook’s residential and commercial areas (and with a descriptive prescience that anticipated Garreau by roughly 20 years), Butler looked across the open green spaces and exclusive residential enclaves he had largely engineered and toward the busy hub of commerce that supported their every municipal comfort, and quietly and with obvious satisfaction confided, “I think we’ve built us a city on the edge of a city” (Anonymous, personal communication, 17 June 2011).

12. These protests have caused very little irritation and had no measurable impact on either the village or McDonald’s. Village officials describe the groups who stage these protests as being very peaceful and organized, as having always sent notice of their proposed activities to the village government in advance, and as not having gone outside the bounds of their allotted area. Their demonstrations are thus a fine example of the routinization of protests and their consequent ineffectiveness elucidated by Mitchell and Staeheli (2005). The protesters are given a space far from the vibrancy of 22nd Street, and are thus exposed only to the light (and largely residential) traffic of 31st Street and Jorie Boulevard.

13. PACE is the suburban extension of Chicago’s public bus system run by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). The Greater Oak Brook Chamber of Commerce and the village government have reportedly been conducting research with PACE officials on ways to increase public transportation access to Oak Brook in recent years.

14. Some residents worry that recruiting businesses without regard to their potential to generate such revenue signals a diminishing understanding of the relationship between a property tax and the sales tax in Oak Brook (most agree that robust sales tax revenues protect residents from the need for a property tax). If the trend continues, these residents argue, the privilege of a property tax-free village may disappear.