The recent Chicago Loop Alliance report on the economic benefits of arts and culture to Chicago highlights a simple but important truth — cultural institutions do more than entertain.
They help define Chicago’s identity, strengthen communities, draw visitors from all corners of the world and generate meaningful economic activity.
For nearly a century, the Grant Park Music Festival has embodied those benefits. One of the nation’s oldest, premier free outdoor classical music festivals, it is a cherished Chicago tradition and an essential part of Chicago’s cultural fabric. Each summer, over 300,000 people gather in Millennium Park to experience world-class music against the backdrop of our iconic skyline.
The festival’s impact extends well beyond the stage, generating over $20 million in economic activity each season and roughly $4 million in tax revenue to bolster Chicago coffers. While here contributing to Downtown’s overall vitality, many out-of-town festival attendees support local restaurants, hotels, retailers and transportation services.
Through its world-class orchestra and chorus, the Grant Park Music Festival also employs nearly 300 professional musicians, helping retain exceptional artistic talent in Chicago and strengthening the broader creative economy. Beyond Millennium Park, these musicians perform in city neighborhoods, inspiring future generations through programs expanding access to the arts.
Reports like the Loop Alliance study confirm what Chicagoans have long understood: Investment in arts and culture yields tangible returns for our economy and our quality of life.
The value of cultural institutions like the Grant Park Music Festival runs deeper, creating shared civic experiences, bringing people from different backgrounds together and showcasing the very best of Chicago.
As Chicago continues to chart its future, we should recognize the Grant Park Music Festival not only as a cultural treasure, but as a proven civic and economic asset that will continue to benefit Chicago for generations. This fall, I look forward to joining this nearly century-old legacy and building on this civic asset for years to come.
Anwar Nasir, president and CEO designate, Grant Park Music Festival
Advocating for HBCU law schools
I was raised between two places: the South Side of Chicago and Alabama, where my
family’s roots run deep. Both taught me that Black institutions have always done more with less, and that the people inside them rarely get credit for it.
That lesson now comes full circle. I’m a third-year law student at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, and the first historically Black college and university law student ever elected to the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors. I’ll be in my hometown this week, standing before the ABA House of Delegates as the author and floor speaker for two resolutions: one that addresses the chronic underfunding of the nation’s six ABA-accredited HBCU law schools, and one that urges Congress to cap runaway interest on student debt for attorneys who choose public service careers.
The numbers are hard to ignore. HBCU law schools make up roughly 3% of ABA-accredited institutions, yet HBCU graduates account for roughly 80% of the nation’s Black judges and half of all Black lawyers. That success resulted in spite of chronic underfunding — not because of it. Meanwhile, the average law graduate now carries well over $130,000 in debt — a burden that pushes talented graduates away from public defense and civil rights work and toward whatever pays the loans down fastest.
This vote for the resolutions is taking place as the ABA faces pressure to repeal its own diversity accreditation standard. That makes it more important that HBCU law schools have a voice in the room this week in the city that raised me.
Chicago taught me that institutions built by necessity, on the South Side and across the
Black Belt, don’t ask for charity. They ask to be seen for what they’ve already delivered.
Marc J. Hawk III, University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, Class of 2027
Environmental inequality a factor in heat-related deaths
Chicago should treat heat deaths as an environmental warning, not just a public health tragedy. At least nine people died from heat-related causes in Cook County last month, and the burden has fallen hardest on South, Southwest or West sides, where residents are more exposed to the urban heat island effect.
Cities create hotter conditions when they replace trees and soil with pavement, roofs and other heat-absorbing surfaces, and that built environment can make extreme weather far more dangerous.
Response to extreme heat cannot be limited to cooling centers and emergency alerts. Chicago should be investing much more aggressively in tree canopy, reflective surfaces, green roofs and neighborhood-scale cooling infrastructure.
If Chicago is serious about climate resilience, it has to treat heat as part of the city’s environmental design problem. Heat deaths are not just the result of high temperatures — they are the result of a city that doesn’t have enough protection against those temperatures. Let’s aim to reduce the heat island effect to keep people from dying.
Sandeep Pant, 11th grader, Palatine High School
Idling on immigration
Who is to blame for the immigration mess? Could it be that Congress — Democrats and Republicans — have been kicking the can down the road for the past 50 or 60 years?
Robert Bishop, Skokie
Obama turns 65
Sixty-five years ago, the then not-so-well-known future husband of South Sider Michelle Robinson was born.
He was the son of aspiring college students who the world now knows as Barack Obama.
Years later, by some lucky chance, Robinson experienced a cordial professional relationship with this gentleman born in Hawaii.
They eventually married as Obama worked his way into the very essence of Chicagoland.
On Tuesday, Aug. 4, let’s wish the former president a heartfelt happy 65th birthday.
Happy Birthday, President Obama.
Wayne E. Williams, Camden, New Jersey