Lily Ogburn/The Daily Northwestern
Evanston and Chicago have started to collaborate more closely to improve business on Howard street, the physical boundary between the two cities.
With Chicago’s newly elected mayor, Brandon Johnson, set to be sworn in on May 15, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss said he hopes the relationship between Evanston and Chicago’s local governments will have a more collaborative dynamic.
Biss, who endorsed Johnson prior to April’s mayoral runoff election, emphasized the importance of building a stronger and more prosperous Chicago area by working together with the larger city. He said he sees this happening with Johnson as mayor.
“On the things that are our top priorities — whether that’s public safety, racial equity, climate, action, sustainability, affordable housing — I think we’re going to have a partner who shares our values,” Biss said. “A partner who we can really get some good things done with.”
He added that Evanston’s relationship with Chicago is a fundamental part of the smaller city’s identity since Chicago is an economic and cultural center of the region.
According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning in 2019, 37.8% of Evanston residents work in Chicago. He thinks many people are drawn to live in Evanston because of the greater Chicago region’s cultural vibrancy.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r