Chicago...John McCarron, for two decades one of Chicagoland’s more insightful writers on the region’s problems and prospects, is about to join the leadership team of the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC).
"MPC’s Board and staff are delighted to have someone with John’s background and talent join us at this crucial time for both the region and for our organization," said MarySue Barrett, president of MPC, in making the announcement.
On Sept. 18, 2000, McCarron launched the new position of vice-president for strategy and communication at MPC.
In that role, Barrett said, the 27-year veteran of the Chicago Tribune will shoulder broad responsibilities on two fronts: promoting and publicizing MPC’s aggressive policy and advocacy agenda; and devising strategies aimed at achieving results in the real-world arenas of politics and government.
MPC has assumed leadership and/or coordination of several region-wide civic campaigns, from the Campaign for Sensible Growth, an effort to slow wasteful and uncoordinated development in favor of reinvesting in existing communities and building sustainable new communities, to Business Leaders for Transportation, a coalition that was instrumental last year in enacting the Illinois FIRST bonding program to repair failing segments of the state’s transportation systems.
"I’ll miss the rush of daily journalism," McCarron said of his career change. "But in two decades covering urban affairs hereabouts, I can’t think of an organization that has shown more integrity, or produced more results, than MPC.
"This gives me the opportunity," McCarron said, "to act directly on urban and regional issues that I could only opine about in my Monday op-ed column or our (Tribune) editorials."
McCarron, 51, joined The Tribune’s editorial board in 1992 following a two-year stint as financial editor. Before that, during the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, he was The Trib’s principal urban affairs writer, covering many of the same issues he will tackle at MPC.
He lives in Evanston with his wife, Janet, and two daughters, Ronnie and Catherine.
McCarron has been a frequent guest on Channel 11’s "Chicago Week in Review," where host Joel Weisman calls on him to explain "anything that has to do with fresh concrete or rising taxes."
At The Tribune, he has gathered numerous awards, from the 1994 Peter Lisagor for best newspaper commentary, to the 1988 national Heywood Broun prize for his highly controversial series on the politics of urban redevelopment.
Founded in 1934, the Metropolitan Planning Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of business and civic leaders committed to sensible planning and development policies necessary for a world-class Chicago region.