Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
Civic Consulting Alliance and its partners -- McKinsey & Company, Mayer Brown, EWK International, and Mercer Consulting -- helped implement to establish a Regional Planning Board, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.
Following the 2005 act passed by the Illinois General Assembly passed an act, Civic Consuting
- Developing the governing structure
- Led the search for an executive director
- Defined a merged organization
- Drafting by-laws
- Created a brand
- Faciliated the board's strategic planning.
As result, one of the core recommendations from the Metropolis 2020 report was implemented: CMAP consolidates the functions of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) and the Chicago Area Transportation Study (CATS) to ensure that regional planning combined transportation and land use planning.
The Challenge
Communities have historically recognized the importance of integrating transportation and land use planning.
In the Chicago region, communities like Oak Park and Evanston have thriving downtown regions because of the land use and transportation integration. Over time though, development migrated from this mindset and many Chicago regional communities were not able to integrate their land use and transportation planning. Transportation planning took place without considering land use implications and land use was designed without understanding its impact on the transportation system.
Metropolis 2020 and other civic leaders recognized the disconnect that existed within the Chicago region and understood the importance of reintegrating land use and transportation planning when conducting city planning for the Chicago region. In 2005 though, there were no regional organizations that focused on both transportation and land use. Recognizing the importance of having a planning council that focused on both these concepts, Metropolis 2020 encouraged the State of Illinois to pass a law that would require two organizations, CATS, focused on transportation, and NIPC, focused on land use, to merge.
The Solution
Civic Consulting became involved in this project as a result of board member encouragement and received funding from the MacArthur Foundation.
Our partners worked together to address the strategy and organizational structure of CMAP. The strategy focused on creating an integrated organization that brought together transportation planning and land use planning. First, it was recommended that the board become an integrated body that focused on developing a comprehensive and cohesive vision for CMAP.
McKinsey, the key partner for this part of the effort, determined that in order for CMAP to effectively address both land use and transportation issues, the board had to act as an active decision maker and create a new, unified vision and integrated governance structure for CMAP. The organization could not simply adopt the visions of the former organizations and merge them together. It was believed that this strategy would ensure that the board was making unified and informed decisions around both transportation and land use.
Mercer Consulting worked on the development of an organizational structure that would also allow CMAP to effectively focus on both transit and land use. While most Metropolitan Planning Organizations separate transit and land use planning from one another, Mercer determined that to integrate this organization most effectively, the organizational structure should have a single planning department, incorporating both land use and transportation. This structure meant that the transit staff worked side by side with the land use staff allowing CMAP to provide more comprehensive services to meet the needs of Chicago’s regional communities.
The Impact
In the history of Illinois’s public sector, it was very rare to observe a successful merger of two very different public organizations. CATS, a state transportation agency created in the 1950s and NIPC, a non-profit advocacy organization, had two very different cultures.
By bringing skilled professionals with relevant expertise to the table, Civic Consulting was able to facilitate a smooth and rapid transition allowing the organizations to merge 18 months ahead of schedule. As a result of this merger, CMAP has been able to become the de facto land use and transportation planning agency for the Chicago region. By having one central organization, the region has an organizational information hub that possesses an understanding of the development occurring throughout the Chicago area ensuring that regional community planning is integrating its land use and transportation plans.