Rachel Frommer of the Washington Free Beacon highlights some left-of-center pushback to plans for the 44th president’s permanent promotional center.
The planned construction of the Obama Presidential Center near the University of Chicago has been criticized as “socially regressive” by over 150 faculty members.
In an open letter released Monday, the professors and lecturers echoed the concerns of multiple community organizations regarding the center’s current blueprint, which would saddle local taxpayers with an estimated $100 million tab, and commandeer large swaths of beloved historic public parks for private development.
“The Obama Center as currently planned will not provide the promised development or economic benefits to the neighborhoods,” wrote the lecturers.
Rather than being a “bold vision for urban living in the future it will soon become an object-lesson in the mistakes of the past,” they continued.
One could argue that a center of that type would offer an accurate reflection of the eight-year tenure of Barack Obama as president.
