Progress Illinois

A great story from the Lisle Sun today. Recent college graduate Tony Michelassi was so frustrated by the lack of a Democratic candidate in the race for the 5th District seat on the Dupage County Board that he decided to run himself:

The 22-year-old had graduated with an associate's degree in political science from College of DuPage two months before the February primary. Although he started his college career as a rhetoric major at the University of Illinois, he had become increasingly interested in government administration.

So when he saw blank space after blank space on the ballot, he decided his name should go in the Democratic slot for the 5th District of the DuPage County Board, which includes Naperville and Lisle.

"I thought this would be a great way to get experience in the field, whether I win or not," said Michelassi, of Aurora.

After consulting with his local precinct committeewoman, Michelassi began attending meetings of the DuPage County Democratic Party and was nominated to run for the seat in March, just before the filing deadline.

In November, he'll compete with two Republicans - incumbent Jim Healy and attorney Gerry Cassioppi - for two of the District 5 seats on the 18-member board.

Go, Tony, go!

As our own Adam Doster explained in a recent feature article, Democrats have gradually been coming out of the woodwork in Dupage County this year to support Democratic congressional challengers like Bill Foster, Jill Morganthaler, and Scott Harper.

In accordance with this resurgence, the Democratic Party of Dupage County just unveiled their stylin' new website. Check it out.

In my recent article on changing political dynamics in the collar counties, I highlighted a number of factors that are aiding Democrats at the ballot box, including demographic shifts, Republican missteps, and the transformation of the regional economy. But one factor I only touched on tangentially was what DePaul University professor Larry Bennett called "the rush of urbanization."

This phrase refers to a rise in civic problems that are traditionally found in urban areas, such as struggling schools, traffic congestion, and slow development. Suburban residents distanced themselves from these issues when they left Chicago's bungalow belts, but they have since crept back into their communities. Meanwhile, as Bennett told me, GOP legislators have failed to address these concerns adequately, instead continuing to advance an anachronistic view of suburban governance.

Michael Gecan, a national staff member for the Industrial Areas Foundation and the author of the must-read memoir Going Public, picks up where I left off, beautifully profiling DuPage County's new bouts with urbanization in this month's issue of the Boston Review:

By the date of the meeting, however, the developers who had helped double DuPage’s population in just 30 years had run out of land. The income generated by their construction efforts had dwindled to a trickle. Education and public safety costs continued to climb. Scores of specialized local districts and commissions — water, sanitary, and others — absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars that never made it into the general operating budget of the county and were subject to little, if any, scrutiny or oversight. And residential real estate taxes — the backbone of the county’s budget due to the long-standing agreement to attract and retain business by keeping commercial taxes low — soared.

(More after the jump ...)

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