I remember when Interstate 70 first went through my St. Louis neighborhood as I was growing up. Some family acquaintances had to move because their houses were in the path of the highway. But my family talked with great excitement about spending less time getting to relatives' homes and to the airport.

Little did we know then that two of the last century's great transportation achievements -- the auto and the jet -- would become the focus of so much controversy in today's debates about how we can best live and work with one another, and how we can best use our natural and manufactured resources.

Highways, public transportation and airports; jobs and education; housing and crime; land and water use; noise and pollution -- all come under a large umbrella commonly called "regionalism." These are complex issues, all interconnected.

State government, the focus of the magazine's coverage, must play a crucial role in regional problem-solving. That's why Illinois Issues has paid so much attention in recent years to regionalism. Thanks in part to The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, we analyzed transportation policies in great detail last month. We continue this month with in-depth coverage of land use and air and water quality.

The 25th anniversary series will conclude next month, nearly two years after our board and staff first deliberated on the major issues affecting Illinois in the past quarter century. Our staff and the many writers and photographers with whom they worked to put the series together deserve enormous credit for their extraordinary effort.

We are maintaining the series on our Web site for your future review. (See http://www.uis.edu/~ilissues)I expect this thoughtful series -- especially in this era of sound bites and ugly campaign rhetoric -- to be a resource for several years as citizens look for credible material about the important issues of the day.

A special thanks to three leaders who have agreed to be honorary chairs of our 25th anniversary event May 1. They are James Stukel, president of the University of Illinois; Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago; and George Ryan, governor of Illinois. All of our readers are invited. See the back cover for details.

Condolences to the family and friends of Ken Boyle, the former legislator and former chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He died March 11. That so many people had to wait for two hours to greet the family at the wake is a living testimony to the number of lives he touched. 

Illinois Issues April 2000 | 3