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April 2012

	05/01/12 The Week Chicago Stopped Working Two decades before the Haymarket Affair, "loafers" practically shut down the city's economy for a week with a vast general strike for the eight-hour day. It failed, but it was the first step in a process that brought us an awareness of the average workday, the Haymarket Riot, and eventually a legal eight-hour day. Posted at 3:44 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/30/12 Chicago-Area Schoolkids are the Second-Most Economically Segregated in the Country A new study looks at housing, income, zoning and school performance across the country's biggest metropolitan areas. Chicago isn't much of an outlier, except when it comes to one category in particular. Posted at 6:50 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/30/12 The Derrick Rose Aftermath Don't blame Thibodeau (but maybe blame the NBA, if not for Rose's injury specifically than for a rash of injuries in this compressed season). Thibodeau, the team's secret weapon, still leads an efficient and well-coached group. Posted at 2:18 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/27/12 Food Deserts and the Home Economics Revival You can lead a person out of the food desert, but you can't make them eat healthy. For that, you need the once-hallowed field of home economics and consumer science, which is due for a comeback. Posted at 6:05 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	04/27/12 A Short History of Chicago's Beautiful, Decrepit Guyon Hotel West Garfield Park's Moorish masterpiece was once the center of a conservative media empire (in the moral sense), the home of WFMT, and a host to young Benny Goodman and old Jimmy Carter. It's also been a crucible of low-income housing development, and despite being on the National Register of Historic Places, it remains in limbo, where it's been for decades. Posted at 3:39 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	04/26/12 Evening Long Reads: Sears, Muncie, and More A long and longform look at the past, present, and future of Sears; an examination of west Humboldt Park's active heroin market; going back to Middletown; and the U. of C. and its role in law and order. Posted at 6:59 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/26/12 Chicago's New Tourism Anthem Is Bad, Like Every Tourism Anthem Ever Chicago's caterwauling maxi-jingle earns immediate thumbs down from the critics. But all city tourism jingles begin that way, until they become ironically loved (or get disappeared). Posted at 4:06 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/26/12 Immigration, Crime, and Population Decline in Chicago and Beyond Why are GOP hardliners so opposed to the DREAM Act, and why is Mitt Romney seemingly following in their footsteps? Immigration boosted Chicago's population during a period of substantial decline... and according to a study by sociologist Robert Sampson reduced crime here and across the country. Posted at 2:12 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/25/12 This Week in Urbanism: Stupid Milwaukee-Wood-Wolcott Intersection Gets Redesigned Plus: could Illinois eliminate the school-bus mandate?; how to remake the Chicago region, starting with sustainable infrastructure; more questions about the Chicago Infrastructure Trust; and more Posted at 5:47 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/25/12 Puzzling Out Chicago's New Infrastructure Trust and a Brief History of Civic Finance Putting the Chicago Infrastructure Trust in historical perspective, from tax increment finance to the Chicago Skyway to the decline of national investment in infrastructure following the tax revolt of the 1970s. Posted at 3:23 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/24/12 Chicago, the Universe, and Everything: Infographics Then and Now The city and its buildings, in context: like, the whole context, from Burnham Park to the Willis Tower to the Virgo cluster to the edge of the observable universe and back. Posted at 6:11 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/24/12 White Sox, Tigers, and Early Returns from Defense The iron-gloved, power-hitting Tigers are currently tied with the surprising White Sox for the AL Central lead—in part because the White Sox have given up substantially fewer runs, thanks to good pitching, and perhaps a superior defense. Posted at 4:58 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/24/12 The Chicago Infrastructure Trust: Paying for Past and Current Problems The Infrastructure Trust ordinance, which passed City Council today easily, was presented as a correction of the previous mayor's misadventures in privatization. But it exists, in part, because of substantial flaws in the public sector as well. Posted at 3:39 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/23/12 A Case for Longer School Days? Former Obama advisor Peter Orszag makes the case that all schools should dump the 3 PM school day, as Chicago is moving towards. But when Houston lengthened their school day, the biggest improvements came not just from more time, but more tutors. Posted at 5:57 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/23/12 Credit Philip Humber's Perfect Game to His Slider The White Sox's fifth starter (and last year, their sixth) throws a completely unexpected perfect game. But maybe not so unexpected: a new approach, and some time for it to develop, suggests that Philip Humber has a bright future in the team's deep, above-average rotation. Posted at 2:04 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/20/12 Lotteries and Privacy It's hard to keep it a secret if you win the lottery, especially in Illinois. But it's worth trying: when the story gets out, attention follows... and maybe a spending spree. Posted at 5:38 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/20/12 Addressing the Realpolitik: Facts Are Still Stubborn Things The facts, reports Rex Huppke, are dead: "survived by two brothers, Rumor and Innuendo, and a sister, Emphatic Assertion." We have a sense of who killed them, but what's the motive? Posted at 4:34 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/20/12 George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, Gated Communities, and Fear The shooting of Trayvon Martin, and the mystery that surrounds it, have brought back the issue of still-novel gated communities and the possibility they instill fear in their residents. But they're more a symptom than a cause, and not so different from the rest of America. Posted at 3:26 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/20/12 Photos: Turn-of-the-Century Chicago, a City on the Make as It Was Being Made An archive from the Detroit Publishing Company captures Chicago from 1890 to 1920, as the city more than doubled in population and transitioned into the modern age as a true metropolis. Posted at 1:16 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/19/12 Urban Remains: Norman Maclean Gives Alfred A. Knopf the Business A middle-finger of a letter from an august U. of C. prof; a detailed history of the Portage Theater; a list of the best restaurants in the suburbs; and more Posted at 6:09 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/19/12 Don Manzullo's Defeat by Adam Kinzinger Causes a PAC Mess for Eric Cantor The House Majority Leader stirs dissent within his own party for supporting the young Rep over the veteran conservative he defeated, tipping off a PAC Rube Goldberg machine in the process. Posted at 4:16 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/19/12 Why I Don't Watch Hockey: A Southern Gothic Tale You wouldn't either, if you grew up rooting for the Roanoke Valley Rebels, or at least rooting for them to get into fights. They were an offensive team, with offensive uniforms, at least until a blizzard took out their arena. Posted at 1:15 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/18/12 Challenges to the Concept and Effects of the Food Desert Two new studies challenge the conventional wisdom on food deserts, a topic that's had its focus in Chicago. In all likelihood, the research is more compatible than it looks, and combined shows the complexity and breadth of the issue. Posted at 6:48 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/18/12 Chicago Speed Cameras and Democracy City Council takes up the semi-contentious speed camera bill, and it passes like many semi-contentious bills before it: 33-14, a low but not atypical result from the past nine years of City Council votes. Posted at 3:25 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/17/12 The Management Techniques of Chicago Mayors The press likes to write about Rahm Emanuel's fast-paced, intimidating managerial style. As these things go in the boring 21st century it's neat enough, but nothing like Big Bill Thompson and his "prize model sailboat." Posted at 6:00 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/17/12 Chicago Cubs: Early Returns on the 2012 Season Starlin Castro is starting hot and showing speed on the basepaths, but his defense needs work; Jeff Samardzija looks like he's for real this time; Bryan LaHair is raking; and Paul Maholm isn't as bad as his 13.50 ERA. Posted at 4:57 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/17/12 Booze Review: Virtue RedStreak Cider from Greg Hall Former Goose Island brewer Greg Hall takes on an untapped market with his new cider venture. The first release, the tap-only RedStreak, just hit Chicago bars after the ten-month process of preparing the brew and the company. Posted at 1:52 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/17/12 This Week in Chicago Regulations and Other Business News A building-materials conglomerate moves its U.S. headquarters to Illinois (but cuts back in downstate Joppa); what the city giveth to shared kitchens, it taketh away from liquor stores; and more Posted at 12:45 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/16/12 More Bike Lanes Equals More Bikes, and Chicago Has a Ways to Go Should cities build bike lanes to fulfill demand? No, suggests the findings of a recent survey: building bike lanes creates demand, just as building more roads leads to having more cars on the road. Posted at 5:41 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/16/12 Red States, Blue States: Political Polarization Rides the Rails A lot is made about red states and blue states, but it's more accurate to say the country is a patchwork of blue cities and red hinterlands. And those patterns follow rail networks to a surprising degree if you look at precinct-level returns. Posted at 3:53 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	04/16/12 Infrastructure Privatization, Legislative Privatization, and the Loss of Faith in the Public Sector The city faces a big expense because of a non-compete clause in its parking-garage privatization deal. This will raise more skepticism about transparency with the proposed infrastructure trust... but it's not like we got great transparency or oversight from prior privatization deals. Posted at 12:54 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/13/12 This Week in Urbanism: Speed Cameras, Bike Share, and Walking City Council signs off on a bike-share program (the same vendor as Washington, D.C., with the same pricing structure) and prepares to take on speed cameras; why Americans don't walk; and more Posted at 5:34 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/13/12 Newsreels of Old Chicago "Loyola Students Vie for Prize Beer Keg in Odd Pushball Game"; the most shot-at gangster in the country tells the Senate how to set the kids on the straight and narrow; and other good/bad ideas. Posted at 4:22 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/13/12 A Chicago Car Elevator Mystery and the Man Who Invented Dialectical Materialism A hunt for the location of a spectacular 1930s car elevator somewhere in Chicago's Loop leads to an august Chicago manufacturer, and the immigrant inventor of dialectical materialism, no less than the "philosopher of socialism." Posted at 2:47 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	04/12/12 How Drinking Makes You More Creative A bit of booze (just below the legal limit!) makes you better able to perform creative tasks, though it makes your memory worse. Probably because it makes your memory worse. A UIC team got some students tipsy and plied them with creative questions to investigate. Posted at 5:16 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/12/12 How Much Do TIFs Cost the Chicago Public Schools? Anywhere from nothing to $267 million in 2010, apparently The concepts are pretty simple, but figuring out a hard number is really hard—and even harder if you consider alternatives to Chicago's TIF system. Posted at 3:33 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/11/12 A Brief History of Block 37 Block 37 gets sold, again, as the city's cursed retail block limps along in the manner we've become accustomed to over the past few decades. Here's a (sort-of) brief history of Block 37: "to know Block 37 is to know Chicago." Posted at 7:09 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/11/12 A Chicago Teacher's School Day: It's Already Long (At Least for Teachers) A new report from two labor experts at the University of Illinois breaks down the CPS school day, minute-by-minute, for the typical Chicago school teacher. Instruction time accounts for less than half of it. Posted at 2:07 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/10/12 Trayvon Martin and the Best Essay Ever Written About Chicago Some notes on "Mr. Bellow's Planet" by Brent Staples, an essay about Hyde Park in the 1970s and racial fears on its streets. Observed four decades ago, written two decades ago, it still sounds entirely familiar. Posted at 6:49 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	04/10/12 Ozzie Guillen Suspended for Being Ozzie Guillen Bowing to pressure from public officials, the Miami Marlins are keeping their new manager off the bench for five games after his "pro-Castro" comments. It might seem like absurd overreach... or it could be an exciting new frontier in public policy. Posted at 4:40 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/10/12 Do People Just Want to Live in Segregation? Not in Chicago Yet another iteration of the belief that markets are efficient and that segregation is perfectly natural is drawn by a controversial political writer. But even in a highly segregated city like Chicago, the numbers don't back it up. Posted at 3:20 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
	04/09/12 Hock of Gray: More State and City Pension Problems The Cook County Pension Fund and the Illinois Teachers Retirement System confront their futures, and they're a lot alike. One of the biggest problems is the unfortunate fact that people are living longer than they used to. Posted at 4:59 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/09/12 The Cubs and White Sox in the Age of Austerity Of all the teams in major league baseball, only three cut their payrolls more than 20 percent over the offseason—and the two most drastic discounters are the Cubs and the Sox, with Theo Epstein leading all of baseball in payroll cuts in his first season. Otherwise, about the only notable thing remains what Ozzie said. Posted at 1:55 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/06/12 Weekend Reads The beginnings of an oral history of Chicago school teaching; the state of Chicago health care; the neighborhoods with the most flower power; DIY urbanism in Logan Square; and more Posted at 5:57 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/06/12 Why the Kids Aren't Driving These Days Millennials are interested in city living, both in the city and the suburbs—and cities and suburbs are meeting that demand. But social media is also a substitute for meetspace, and the Information Superhighway for the highway. Posted at 4:29 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/06/12 The Greek Debt Crisis and the Importance of Government Trust Two Greek-Americans in Chicago—two of our most widely read political writers of different generations and ideologies—both see America's future in Greece. What went wrong there, and what lessons can we learn? Posted at 2:50 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/05/12 Against the First of the Month: The Case for Twice-Monthly Food Stamps and Afterschool Snacks Could switching SNAP card refills to twice a month, and increasing afterschool snack programs, decrease disciplinary problems in Chicago Public Schools? A new study—and Obama's former OMB director—support the idea. Posted at 5:21 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/05/12 Did the Destruction of Chicago's Public Housing Decrease Violent Crime, Or Just Move It Elsewhere? A new study from the Urban Institute, led by former UIC prof Susan Popkin, finds a connection between the movement of former public-housing residents, decreased crime in the urban center, and increased crime in relocation neighborhoods. The correlation is strong, but the causation is complex. Posted at 3:23 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	04/04/12 Chicago's Global Clout: Now and In the Future Two new reports see Chicago's position among world cities staying relatively stable, at least compared to our national peers; the real growth will be among China's biggest cities. On the other hand, we're "becoming more important geopolitically than the United States is as a country," so we've got that going for us. Posted at 6:38 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/04/12 Health Care, Access, and Outcomes In Chicago (and Throughout Chicago) A new report shows Chicago to be a bad place to live in terms of health care access, cost, and results. But much depends on where in Chicago you live, and the biggest gaps are on the far south side. Posted at 3:55 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/04/12 The Culture That Makes an MF Global Possible Karen Ho, the author of Liquidated, an outstanding ethnography of contemporary Wall Street that explains how its internal culture spills out into the American economy, discusses the mindset that can bring down a huge financial firm run by terribly bright people. Posted at 2:45 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/04/12 Mitt Romney Wins Wisconsin The presumptive nominee takes Wisconsin by a desultory but solid margin, making him more inevitable than the day before. The secret (besides lots of cash)? Santorum's advantage among evangelicals is also his ceiling. Posted at 12:02 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/03/12 The Bears' New Nike Uniforms: A Bigger Deal for the Players Than For Fans Nike taking over the manufacturing of NFL jerseys promised an XFL-like horror show along the lines of their college uniforms. Surprisingly, their changes to the Bears and other teams are unsurprising. Posted at 6:10 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/03/12 The CME Group, Rahm, and TIFs: Correcting the Record Another day, another article claiming that (for better or worse) Rahm Emanuel is bringing a new form of government to Chicago, casting off its patronage legacy and bringing the city into the 21st century of civic governance. It's a lot more complicated than that. Posted at 4:05 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	04/03/12 Groupon's Accounting Gets SEC Attention Again Groupon stock prices are down to near-lows on news that the SEC has started an "informal inquiry" into another accounting issue at the company. Again, it's a question of what income is. Posted at 12:16 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/02/12 Privatization and Other Policy Reads Why Chicago is now the Fourth City behind New York, Los Angeles, and... Washington D.C.?; the European model of infrastructure privatization and why they're so much better at it than us; and more Posted at 5:37 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	04/02/12 Anthony Davis: Chicago's Late-Blooming High School Star Is the Best Player in College Basketball University of Kentucky star Anthony Davis went from Cleveland State recruit to the most sought-after player in the country in a matter of weeks. Even as he prepares to play in the NCAA final, his talent requires looking deeper than the box score. Posted at 3:27 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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