The Economic Stimulus: How It Went and Where It's Going Regionally and Nationally

July 9, 2009     

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, more commonly called "the stimulus bill") is having significant impacts on job creation and infrastructure improvement in metropolitan Chicago. Randy Blankenhorn, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), will describe stimulus activities in the seven-county region, which is benefiting not just in terms of roads and transit, but also housing and energy-efficiency enhancements funded by the ARRA. Randy will discuss CMAP's role in coordinating the region's effort to this stimulus funding, and the prospects for lasting reform of how infrastructure investments get made here and across the nation. Part of this context is GO TO 2040, metropolitan Chicago's comprehensive regional plan now in development for completion in 2010.