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The List
(page 2 of 7)
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CRIME AND POLICE
An online pioneer in crime mapping, ChicagoCrime.org allows you to see reports of crime in your neighborhood and when and where it happened. (This link has been updated since we first published the story)
Greed, public corruption, and murder always have a home at TheOutfitCollective.blogspot.com, a blog started in July 2006 featuring seven crime fiction writers who discuss writing and Chicago crime, and occasionally go off topic. A new post appears every two or three days, on topics as varied as the brutal murder of dermatologist David Cornbleet and dealing with a 24-year-old Barry Bonds as an intern in 1989.
Branded as "sarcasm and silliness from a Windy City cop," SecondCityCop.Blogspot.com is published from behind a cloak of secrecy that allows for snarky commentary about gun issues, shootings, department issues, and police brutality.
Gangsta Chicago meets virtual Chicago at ChicagoGangs.org. The site, authored by a few Chicagoans (who don't want their names known for fear of retaliation), has grown from a collection of graffiti photographs to include maps delineating gang turf across the city, lists of active gangs, photos of hand signs and tattoos, a chatroom, and history on how gangs actually function.
DANCE
The best Web guide to Chicago's professional dance scene comes from SeeChicagoDance.com, which highlights more than 120 dance groups—from the Joffrey Ballet to flamenco and hip-hop. The site offers discounts on tickets for more than 60 venues in the city and suburbs.
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FASHION
With fashion event listings, articles on the latest trends, and a very active and visual blog, SecondCityStyle.com is one of those sites on which it's almost impossible to read everything. A directory of Chicago shops on the site lists hundreds of addresses and phone numbers.
City-run ChicagoFashionResource.com contains information about more than 250 local fashion designers and boutiques. Neighborhood shopping profiles and store information appear in an (appropriately) sleek visual style.
FINDING STUFF
Based in Chicago, CareerBuilder.com claims to have more than 1.5 million national job listings. A recent search found more than 15,000 jobs in the Chicago area, from tech jobs to warehouse gigs. The site sends customized e-mail job alerts, matches jobs based on the content of résumés, lists upcoming career fairs, offers career testing, and includes a salary calculator for different job titles.
Chicago.CraigsList.org is the local version of the famous online classified site that collects free, full-color, long-form classified ads. Since 2000 it's been helping Chicagoans find Mr. or Ms. Right, get a job, rent an apartment, and buy used bikes, cars, boats, furniture, or just about anything else.
Picture 2,396 Chicagoland bloggers sorted by their nearest public transit station and you understand the concept behind ChicagoBloggers.com. Although it's unclear whether a reader cares which el or Metra stop a blogger lives near, the search function makes the site more useful. A competitor, ChicagoBlogMap.com, which lists 480-plus Chicago blogs (with only partial overlap), sticks to the el map.
Find the cheapest gas in town at ChicagoGasPrices.com. All prices are posted by locals who scour the city for the cheapest fill-up and in the process earn points for free gas and other prizes.
Hotspotr.com/wifi/map/5-chicago-il provides Google maps of Chicago-area Wi-Fi hot spots with user reviews on quality of connection and number of outlets. Everything a wireless vagabond needs to get connected in unknown neighborhoods (assuming you can get online to check it).
The entire Not for Tourists guidebook of 60-plus Chicago-area neighborhoods is available online at NotForTourists.com, with neighborhood maps and detailed write-ups, just like those in the book.
Use Yelp.com to tune in to people reviewing, grading, and yapping about things and places in Chicago, from boutiques to restaurants to plumbers. The site also allows you to find nearby spots on an easy-to-use map——great for locating a good restaurant before a movie.
Think of GetFave.com as the YouTube yellow pages. Search for businesses by keyword and by address, neighborhood, or town to find listings near you; then view funny and informative videos that businesses pay to post—so you can know the personality of a place before you go.
OpenList.com brings together reviews of Chicago-area restaurants, shops, and more from several sites, including Citysearch, Amazon, and Metromix. Having more reviews together is nice, but the site uses the dubious tactic of giving the percentage of reviews that are positive, meaning storefronts can outrank world-class restaurants.
FOOD
Veggie lovers can shop locally for organic foods at FamilyFarmed.org. The site hooks users up with community-supported agriculture, where local farmers deliver fresh produce to drop-off sites in late spring, summer, and early fall.
Billed as a blog on "Chicago food for those who can barely afford it," GastronomicBypass.com offers thoughts on dining at less expensive places such as Spacca Napoli and Lula Café. The anonymous blog discusses service, presentation of dishes, cost, the scene, and dress code.
GrubHub.com tells you which restaurants deliver to your address. Users rate the choices; many listings contain coupons, and almost all let you order online with no surcharge (GrubHub gets paid by the restaurants).
The Tribune has carved out an informal place for editors and reporters to wax on about food-related hankerings, interests, celebrity chef sightings, and the restaurant biz. Focuses more on downtown, Loop, and South Loop, but throws in reviews of eats in the 'burbs and the 'hoods and occasional newsy items. (leisureblogs.chicago tribune.com/thestew)
It can be hard to keep tabs on both haute and storefront dining. LTHForum.com, where the city's dedicated local foodies cover every neighborhood in the city, every ethnic cuisine, and every price point, with long reviews by users (including in some cases photos of dishes), is a true find.
GARDENING
Struggling to figure out how much water to give your shadblow serviceberry? The Chicago Botanic Garden's Bestplants.org stores a staggering amount of info on keeping plants in Illinois, with pages on almost every plant you can think of. (Shadblow serviceberries should stay moist.)
GAY
ChicagoPride.com collects events, special offers, news, and columns of interest to the gay community. The site also hosts blogs, personal ads, and party photos with ostentatious costumes.
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Reader Comments:
Congrats on the accolades! It's nice to be recognized for putting something together that has a good scope, relevant to the people around you, and features lots of cool links and pics to check out!
A great website that should go under Arts & Culture is the Chicago-based video magazine www.getfreshcut.com. They do interviews with up-and-coming artists, musicians and filmmakers and their blog covers all sorts of new media stories.
Another great Chicago-based website that didn't make the list is http://www.NeighborHuddle.com. This site connects Chicago area homeowner and condo associations internally and with eachother. Developers can also simplify the turnover of their projects to the associations using the website. It's great!
http://www.daviddalka.com/createvalue/ The best technology, search engine and advertising blog in Chicago
Another emerging startup out of Chicago is the corporate social networking website Offiscion (www.offiscion.com). Offiscion allows peers in organizations to connect, communicate, and collaborate with one another.
Great Chicago TV Museum site: www.FuzzyMemories.TV
If you ever make a list like this again, you need to include Hockeenight, which is the first place I go after a Blackhawks game.
www.csac.biz is a great Chicago resource for sports fans and collectors looking to meet their favotrie pro athletes.
I have just read your article on the 171 best websites in Chicago, and unfortunatly you listed rogersparkbench.blogspot.com as one of your picks under the neighborhoods category.
On that website today Tom Mannis writes about the News-Star and Booster being sold. There is nothing factual in his writing,NOTHING. None of the statements he makes there are true. The Readers article about it is true. Tom is just a bitter man because he was told his freelance services were no longer wanted at those papers. Unfortunately, this is the method of operation for his blog, flying of the handle "journalism", without checking facts he constantly finds himself with his foot in his mouth. You should have listed this site under "fictional entertainment" for it certainly is not news.
For intense details about corruption among government officials and their staff see:
http://illinoiscorruption.blogspot.com/
http://cookcountyjudges.wordpress.com/