RM: I've seen firsthand what a good city flag can do in the case of Chicago. The marriage of good design and civic pride is something that we need in all places. The best part about municipal flags is that we own them. They are an open-source, publicly owned design language of the community. When they are done well, they are remixable, adaptable, and they are powerful. We could control the branding and graphical imagery of our cities with a good flag, but instead, by having bad flags we don't use, we cede that territory to sports teams and chambers of commerce and tourism boards. Sports teams can leave and break our hearts. And besides, some of us don't really care about sports. And tourism campaigns can just be cheesy. But a great city flag is something that represents a city to its people and its people to the world at large. And when that flag is a beautiful thing, that connection is a beautiful thing.