Since the regime of austerity instituted in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, most public institutions in Chicago have struggled to stay solvent, let alone finance plans for dramatic structural improvements. We are regularly told there is no money to finance public schools, city colleges, and the basic infrastructure necessary in a civil society.

But when Elon Musk proposes tunneling underground to create a new direct line from O’Hare to downtown, a “Hyperloop” duplicating the CTA Blue Line, the mayor’s office greets the project with enthusiasm.

If you accept the austerity narrative, you may be inclined to point out that the Hyperloop is essentially a private initiative, bringing needed investment into Chicago. Yet even if this is the case, the city can surely direct and instruct these developers towards meaningful infrastructure projects of lasting significance. In a public-private partnership, the public should expect more than new conveniences for well-networked VIPs desiring a less bothersome travel experience.

By instead prioritizing this type of development, Chicago is loudly signifying it is no longer the “city of neighborhoods” it advertises. The whole point is to bypass the neighborhoods, now seen as obstacles to be avoided underground.

But the new tunnel project only underscores the long-standing logic behind the city’s public transportation infrastructure. Consider the pattern of traffic on the CTA itself, which is already entirely designed to shuttle people into downtown.

Unless you (very implausibly!) live your entire life along a single CTA line, you will have to travel all the way into the Loop to connect to any other line and visit most of the city’s celebrated neighborhoods by train.

The effects of this design cannot be underestimated. It places every part of the city outside of the Loop into a center-periphery relationship with the city center. All roads do not lead to Rome, but to City Hall, the financial markets, and Trump Tower. Like the famous Beltway in DC, the Loop encircles those whose opinions matter and excludes everyone else, who must come downtown to secure the clout and financial backing necessary for their survival.

Every city will always have a center, and complete decentralization is neither desirable nor possible. But Chicago’s inner band is far too narrow to capture any meaningful sense of the city as a whole. As of 2015, the Loop only had around 34,000 permanent residents, around a single percent of the city’s 2.7 million residents. To borrow the old rallying cry of Occupy Wall Street, the privilege of the “one percent” is built directly into our city’s infrastructure. One percent of the city enjoys dense transportation networks taking off in all directions, while the rest finds itself helplessly dependent on a single line into the halls of power.

Adding a second or third loop connecting the outer portions of the lines would help link neighborhoods and dramatically reduce the travel times for most residents of the city. To give just one possible example, a student traveling from Northwestern in Evanston to O’Hare could connect over to the Blue Line on one of the outer loops, rather than make a long and unnecessary trip into the Loop.

The city’s south and west side would also benefit from a more lateral plan of development. Instead of feeling dependent on a distant, indifferent city center, the ‘peripheral’ neighborhoods could more easily network and feel invested in their communities and those surrounding them, moving past old street and block divisions. It is no accident that the most powerful area of the city is the best networked, while disadvantaged neighborhoods are intentionally cut off from the rest, suffering from economic red-lining.

While I am not an engineer and cannot estimate the cost and feasibility of such a project, I am confident that, whatever the cost, it would bring more long-term value to the city than a high-speed duplication of the Blue Line. The concept is not unproven, and is, in fact, rather traditional. Most European cities have a “ring road” which roughly marks the boundaries of the city, just like a wall once defined the city in medieval times.

Consider the ring line of Berlin’s U-Bahn, which encircles nearly an entire city with almost twice the number of inhabitants as Chicago.

Incidentally, this kind of design would also benefit those living and working in the Loop, easing the pressure of traffic and further expanding their connection with the rest of the city. The city center would be a less singularly powerful node, but it would enjoy a much stronger network.

To borrow an old phrase from Mark Zuckerberg, we should start to believe the promises of engineers to “make the world more open and connected” when they actually build an infrastructure that meaningfully extends the political, economic, and social loop beyond the fading prestige of marquee zip codes.

Written by George Saad

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