The legend of Harold Washington

The Chicago government Washington inherited when he was elected mayor in 1983 was an inefficient, bloated bureaucracy — by design. The Democratic Party rewarded campaign workers with city jobs, and its absolute dominion over local politics meant there was never any incentive to cut the municipal workforce. During Washington's four-plus years as mayor, he slashed the city payroll by roughly 15 percent, despite black unemployment in the double figures, and he was widely praised for hiring professionals who put the city's shaky finances on much firmer footing. Shortly after he took office, Washington signed the city's first Freedom of Information Act and passed an ethics ordinance despite opposition from many members of the City Council, including some who were otherwise his supporters.

Washington was a good government reformer in the classic sense of the term. But he was also more than that — a visionary in two important ways.

One derived from the New Deal ideal that government can help create a more just and equitable society. On that front, he won praise from homeless advocates, opened up the contracting process to women- and minority-owned businesses, and gave voice to Latinos, gays and other Chicagoans long ignored by City Hall.

Second, Washington's vision derived from his innate populism. He believed the public could serve as a force for better government, and through neighborhood organizations, community development groups and other grass-roots initiatives actually produce policy and useful services. During his tenure as mayor, local housing and economic development groups came into their own, serving as de facto delegate agencies — "our eyes and ears in the neighborhood," as he put it. Those community groups could help the city government attend to neighborhood problems such as blighted buildings, a lack of decent affordable housing, and abandoned business strips with an effectiveness simply unachievable by conventional bureaucratic means.

It was in no small part because of the Washington administration's belief in neighborhood economic development and his empowerment of non-profit housing groups that Chicago started turning the corner from Rust Belt ghost town to innovative, forward-thinking metropolis. Chicago during the 1970s was marked by an occluded civic vision. Remember the business elite's answer for reinvigorating Chicago's economy — a world's fair?

One journalist joked that the city's leadership was aiming to confront a 21st century problem using a 19th century remedy. During Washington's mayoralty, Chicago charted a new path. Neighborhood revitalization moved beyond the slash-and-burn tactics of urban renewal, and Chicago began to re-emerge as a vital city drawing the energies of young people and others who would pioneer a multitude of innovative commercial and artistic enterprises. Chicagoans, as well as commentators across the country, began to notice these changes in the 1990s, but their wellspring was in the 1980s.

Washington was not a perfect mayor. In his first months in office, he overplayed his hand in confronting the City Council, and the resulting overheated rhetoric did little good for the city at large. He never came to grips with the deeply set pathologies of the Chicago Housing Authority. But then again, beset by intransigent legislative foes (indeed, aren't congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, in effect, plagiarizing the playbook of Washington's nemeses on the City Council, Ed Vrdolyak and Ed Burke?), he had to choose his fights, and in 41/2 years as mayor, he could accomplish only so much.

But what Washington did accomplish, he accomplished with the people of Chicago, including some of his staunchest critics from the Northwest and Southwest Sides. By giving Chicagoans across the city a voice, Washington set the tone for a new, more optimistic city and — even more important — turned its honeycomb of neighborhood groups into a force for improving the quality of local life. This is the subtle lesson of the Washington years. It is also a lesson unlikely to be learned from long hours of quality time spent in the company of real estate titans, bond traders, and corporate captains. Are you listening, Mayor Emanuel?

Gary Rivlin is the author of the prize-winning account of Harold Washington's mayoralty, "Fire on the Prairie." Larry Bennett is the author of "The Third City: Chicago and American Urbanism."