Jamie Murnane

"Are tourists more important than the poor?" Mayor Daley asks a few pedestrians waiting for the CTA. Dan McLean, president of MCL, asks "Do developers deserve a tax break more than you?"

Of course, Daley and McLean didn't literally ask these preposterous head-scratchers, but CHAos, a new marketing campaign on the offensive that launched last week and has its sights set on the Chicago Housing Authority, has splattered pictures of the public figures on billboards, newspapers and public transit spouting such offensive blurbs.

CHAos mimics the Chicago Housing Authority's Leo Burnett-created marketing campaign that began last year, which proclaimed the new face of "CHAnge" with a "Plan for Transformation" that would reshape Chicago's public housing. And by reshape, they meant tear down all of the CHA's high-rise public housing units--14,000 buildings in all--which the CHAos campaign says would ultimately displace more than 20,000 residents.

The CHAos website, www.chicagohousingauthority.net (cleverly titled, as the real Chicago Housing Authority finds its home at www.thecha.org), poses the question: "How many units of Lincoln Park housing would be demolished if the plan for transformation took place there?" The CHAos campaign claims that the CHA has done very little in the way of change--and that public housing residents remain at the bottom of city officials' lists.

"Do money and politics mix?" asks CHA CEO Terry Peterson. No response, as of press time, from the Chicago Housing Authority.

(2005-05-31)

Also by Jamie Murnane

Intercity Rivalry
AC/DC's "T.N.T" is blaring through the speakers of the South Side's Fleetwood Roller Rink
(2005-05-10)

The Magical City
Fifty years ago, Chicago was a magical city. Literally. It was the bustling center of magic in the United States and the unlikely birthplace of what would become known as close-up magic, in which magicians would mesmerize and mystify viewers in lounges and restaurants, stepping off the stage and right up next to their captivated spectators
(2005-04-19)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
They say interoffice relationships never work. But who are they, anyway?
(2005-04-12)

Do dogs say "cheese"?
Nacho, a spunky brown Yorkie, runs around Urban OutSitters' lower level--barking cordially as people walk through the door
(2005-03-15)

Tip of the Week
(2005-03-08)

Beaning Christopher Walken
(2005-02-22)

Feeling Ernest
(2004-09-08)

Indisposable cameras
(2004-08-31)

Still curious
(2004-08-25)

'Do it
(2004-08-03)

The Naked City
(2004-07-20)

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