Cicada Code
Year: 2020
Location: Chicago, IL
Competition Entry: LA+ CREATURE
Recognition: Honorable Mention
Team: Conor O’Shea
Cicada Code is a set of proposed changes to Chicago’s landscape ordinance that anticipates the arrival of the 17-year cicada in 2024.
The fictional press release:
CHICAGO - On Wednesday, City Council passed a set of amendments to the Municipal Code known locally as the “Cicada Code.” The code will be injected into Chapter 10-32 and Chapter 17-11, thereby amending Chicago’s landscape ordinance. Brood XIII of the 17-year periodical cicada Magicicada spp. is expected to reemerge in 2024, and these changes will ensure its survival and communicate its importance to the public. They’re also intended to be an ecological trojan horse: while benefiting the cicada, they will create bottom-up cascades.
In her closing statement, Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot said “I would be hard-pressed to find a councilperson who doesn’t have fond memories of the 17-year cicadas. We must preserve that memory for future generations and in the process improve our city’s resiliency. With the Brood XIII emergence only four years away, the time to act is now.”
Aside from the awesome natural spectacle the emergence provides, other benefits cited by the team that helped write the code included pruning mature trees, aerating the soil, and increasing rainwater infiltration through their emergence holes. As one of nature’s great “resource pulses,” they provide nitrogen for trees, increase microbial biomass, and feed birds and mammals.
Highlights of the code include the creation of the Chicago Cicada District (CCD), a threesquare mile area on the city’s northwest side with special requirements. Other amendments overturn outmoded maintenance practices, like removing leaf litter and spraying insecticides, both now banned in the CCD and in parkways and medians across the city.
In addition to placing educational signage in the Chicago Cicada District, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events will host nocturnal visits to cicada emergence sites and listening tours during late summer of 2024 led by acoustical experts from Northeastern Illinois University and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
