What is Pullman’s future?

It’s understandable if Chicagoans are skeptical about President Barack Obama’s designation of the historic Pullman factory district as the city’s first national monument.

Thursday’s ceremony can’t change the fact that Pullman sits some 15 miles from downtown, far from the glitter of Millennium Park, and is flanked by violence-plagued neighborhoods like nearby Roseland.

Even so, it would be wrong to dismiss out of hand the rosy forecasts that Pullman’s boosters are making: After 10 years, they predict, the national monument will draw 300,000 visitors annually, at least six times more than it attracts today…Please click here to read Blair Kamin’s column in the Tribune.