letter to the editor

i love people from chicago. seriously, i have never met a chicago-native that i do not love whole-heartedly. it started with my first super bowl memory, when i picked the fighting chicago bears to win over the patriots (and was the only member of my family to do so...i was a refrigerator perry fan!) then i met oprah on tv a few years later, then i went to college and met mary, and then moved to dallas and met doug and kelly...the hits just keep on coming!!! (not to mention i appreciate the bears allowing my dimple-clad cowboy, tony romo, an at-chicago victory this evening!!)

that said, i was just reading some opinion letters on the dallas morning news website and read another great former chi-town resident that now resides in dallas comment regarding the close-to-my-heart trinity river project:

Take a look at the Windy City
Having lived in Chicago for the past 19 years, I look at this controversy and shake my head in disbelief. The idea that a roadway cannot exist along with a park is ridiculous.

Did the opponents ever hear of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago? The width of land from the front door of million-dollar homes to the edge of Lake Michigan is half of the land in question for the Trinity River Park. Cars whiz by as residents jog, splash, picnic and relax in the Chicago parks that comingle with the concrete.

When Millennium Park was first proposed in Chicago, the good mayor said it would cost one thing and, of course, it ended up costing more. But go there and be amazed.

(insert by katy - yeah, that really looks like it "sucks"...come on, dallas!!!)

So before the vote in November, I would encourage everyone involved to take a field trip to Chicago and see how a real city works. Then return to Dallas and get this project going, so we can show the world that in 2007, Dallas can, as former Chicago city planner Daniel Burham said, "make no little plans."

Raymond M. Crawford, Dallas