Visionary Voices — gatherings we started in 2024 to share collective efforts to create resilient communities — is going online to produce more generative conversations with community, planning, government, academic and business leaders, moderated by Nina Idemudia, AICP.

“You’ve got to speak up. You can’t sit back and fuss and complain, you’ve got to make your concerns known.”

That’s wisdom from Jacky Grimshaw, CNT’s senior director who has led the charge on policy and advocacy, especially around equitable transit-oriented development, for 40 years. It’s part of a conversation between Jacky and CNT CEO Nina Idemudia, AICP, the first video podcast in our 2026 Visionary Voices series.

This conversation started with a commentary in a Crain’s Chicago Business forum on the new Northern Illinois Transportation Act, NITA: Public transit has a chance to reinvent how people connect and get around. Their commentary—and this conversation—highlights that with board appointments now under way, it’s more important than ever to stay involved in decision-making about regional public transit.

More about Visionary Voices:  We’ve held several conversations a year that gathered community leaders and changemakers to discuss topics related to creating more resilient communities such as how identity helps shape policy and the intersectionality of housing, racial and climate justice.

We are taking our conversations online this year as we lift up key themes in our work: Trustworthy, accessible knowledge; Community power; and Just neighborhoods.  Conversations on these themes, which emerged from Center for Neighborhood Technology’s recently completed strategic plan, let participants and listeners reflect on our collective efforts to create resilient communities where all people can thrive.

More:

Download the transcript

Ways to get involved with NITA:

• The Regional Transit Authority created the Transit is the Answer Coalition as a broad-based arena for groups to have a voice in decisions related to northern Illinois regional transportation. Sign up / learn more here
• RTA also has a timeline of key upcoming dates, starting with June 1, the day NITA takes effect
• Stay tuned! If you’re not already getting our monthly newsletter, you can sign up for that here. Our partners at Active Transportation Alliance, Illinois Environmental Council, and Metropolitan Planning Council are among many others helping to lead the charge on this. Stay up to date via their websites and email lists, too.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO) City of Chicago policy requiring affordable housing units in new residential developments
• Chicago Jobs with Justice Workers’ rights organization whose members shared transit access stories during NITA advocacy
• CMAP Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
• Crain’s Chicago Business Public Transit Forum: With Conditions in Place, Parties Must Take Haste to Address the Housing-Transit Connection commentary by Nina Idemudia and Jacky Grimshaw
• Elevated Chicago Coalition advancing equitable transit-oriented development across Chicago neighborhoods
• Equitable Transit-Oriented Development CNT Backgrounder | Elevated Chicago explainer Strategy to add homes and shopping or other amenities near transit so people drive less, spend less, and enjoy a higher quality of life
• ISTEA Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (1991) Landmark federal transportation legislation that shaped transit funding for decades
• Northern Illinois Transportation Act (NITA) Governor’s news release | Metropolitan Planning Council explainer | Legislation creating the new Northern Illinois Transportation Authority, merging multiple agencies into one regional institution and expanding its authority to include, among other things, Equitable Transit Oriented Development, ETOD
• PART Plan Plan of Action for Regional Transit, the planning document that laid the groundwork for NITA, drafted by CMAP

Have a question, or want to suggest a topic or guest? Please get in touch with Managing Director John Schickedanz at jschickedanz@cnt.org.