The Chicago Bears lower the crew roster to 53 gamers final week, leaving it with the youngest bunch in reminiscence. Rebuilding underneath a brand new administration crew, the Bears parted with older stars like Khalil Mack, Akiem Hicks and Andy Dalton, all of their 30s, and stocked up on recent faces born when the Nineteen Nineties have been giving solution to a brand new millennium.
A crew that had the second-oldest Week One roster within the NFL final 12 months had 13 rookies and 7 second-year gamers after its preliminary wave of cuts this 12 months. As Tribune sports activities columnist Brad Biggs reported on the time, “The Bears have so many rookies on the roster, three first-year Joneses made it: left tackle Braxton, cornerback Jaylon and wide receiver Velus. Yes, they’re unrelated.”
The Bears have saved shaking issues up, including extra younger gamers who have been lower from different groups and, because the season progresses, possibly they’ll add one other Jones or two. We’re inspired: The older guys weren’t getting the job achieved, and a youth motion might be simply the ticket to reboot a struggling crew.
Could the identical method even be simply the ticket for Chicago as an entire?
Downtown Chicago continues to get better from a COVID-19 pandemic that left it awash in undesirable workplace area, vacant storefronts and underutilized transit traces. Tourism has made a comeback this summer season, however, just like the Bears, the town wants reinvention.
Our recommendation: Do just like the Bears, and double down on youth.
Cities at all times have appealed to younger folks looking for to construct careers and social networks, meet potential mates and make the most of nightlife, arts and leisure. Yet younger adults by no means have influenced Midwestern city planning to the identical extent as, say, suburban commuters who traveled to downtown places of work day-after-day. That a lot is evident from archaic transit schedules alone.
Working from residence throughout the pandemic revealed the inefficiency of the standard commuting routine, and for a lot of former cubicle denizens, there’s no going again, at the least not 5 days every week. To get forward of what comes subsequent, the town must do a greater job giving the younger what they need. Hint: It’s no more floor parking heaps nor one other head-scratcher of a branding marketing campaign.
Chicago must empower the younger to work with metropolis authorities to make its city core more healthy and extra livable. That might imply modifications that some would discover unwelcome, comparable to eliminating parking spots, repurposing public area for bike lanes and offering stronger incentives for utilizing public transit, assuming the town could make it safer and extra environment friendly.
Similarly, the town can be extra welcoming to newer generations if it added pet- and pedestrian-friendly inexperienced areas and tended extra intently to its beneficial tree cover. It additionally wants to chop purple tape and in any other case help downtown landlords changing now-obsolete workplace area into residences that younger folks might afford.
Chicago already has a leg up attracting the younger, as its downtown has change into floor zero for 1000’s of school college students, particularly within the South Loop. To preserve its workforce updated, the town additionally wants to higher entice prime younger faculty graduates — and numerous ones, too, not least to stabilize its shrinking Black inhabitants.
People must suppose in a different way concerning the relationship between downtown and work. As city planning professional Richard Florida places it, “The office is no longer a building …The neighborhood, the city, the downtown itself has become the new office.”
One solution to efficiently transition from previous downtown to new, he says, is to make the outside extra engaging (climate allowing) for actions usually achieved indoors, sidewalk eating being an apparent instance and struggling Michigan Avenue a primary potential location.
Also apparent: the necessity for public security. The current spike in road crime is more likely to dominate the upcoming mayoral election, and nobody, younger or previous, desires to stay in worry.
But the attitudes of youthful generations to crime preventing must be accounted for as effectively. Many younger persons are deeply dedicated to social justice, and they are often companions in growing new methods to make the town safer, higher built-in and fewer divided between haves and have-nots.
Chicago already has greater than 10 candidates vying for mayor within the 2023 election, together with incumbent Lori Lightfoot, and a slew of aldermen have introduced their departures from the City Council. The way forward for the town is as extensive open as we speak because it has been in a long time. This is a uncommon alternative to usher in new methods of doing issues.
At the identical time, in just some days, the Bears are anticipated to start out their common season led by 23-year-old quarterback Justin Fields, his blind facet protected by 23-year-old left sort out Braxton Jones and with 24-year-old receiver Darnell Mooney able to snag landing throws.
Chicago, take inventory of your younger expertise: Give them the ball.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com