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June 2012

	07/05/12 The Hottest Day in Chicago, Then and Now Today's near-record high, coming right after a record-high Fourth of July, lifted temperatures higher than we've seen in years—but it's still nothing like Chicago in the 1930s. Plus: why increasing low temperatures are more worrisome, and the possibility that corn might have something to do with that. Posted at 3:54 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	07/03/12 The Early History of Segregation in Chicago Between the 1919 race riot and the end of the Great Migration, segregation went from specter of racial strife to legal doctrine, aided by the law and economic writings of Progressive reformers Richard T. Ely and Nathan William MacChesney. Posted at 6:40 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	07/03/12 Crate-Digging IU Prof Turns Oldest Known Recording Back into Sound Plus: the weird racial history of America's first great indie record label, and other detours down the backroads of Indiana's recording industry and the obsessives bringing it back to life. Posted at 12:55 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
	07/02/12 The Rosenwald Apartments: A Bronzeville Legacy in Limbo The 420-some unit complex, built by Julius Rosenwald as affordable housing for middle-class blacks in a segregated city, was once managed by Quincy Jones's mother and provided elegant apartments at reasonable rates. After years of neglect and then abandonment, it's now an expensive problem. Posted at 5:45 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	07/02/12 Chicago's Lathrop Homes: A Reverse Potemkin Village on the River The prewar Lathrop Homes at Damen and Diversey have long been one of the better public-housing developments in the city, and even in a deteriorated state are a good foundation for public or mixed-income housing. Yet despite their well-maintained landscaping, they're almost completely vacant—among many other CHA units in housing limbo. Posted at 3:45 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
	06/29/12 The Chicago Education Crisis of the 1950s: Too Much Gosh-Darn Fun America sweating its spoiled, stupid youth has a long, rich history in journalism and higher education—none richer than in the postwar years, when our nitwit teens were going to get us all nuked to kingdom come. Posted at 5:37 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/29/12 The Chicago Pride Parade, 35 Years Ago It took a long time for the Chicago Pride Parade to draw over 800,000 people—before it really took off in the 1980s, the early years of the parade were a modest affair, except for the floats. Posted at 4:10 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/29/12 How Segregation Is Evolving (And Not Evolving) in the 21st Century Dartmouth geographer Richard Wright talks about how segregation (and the Chicago School-driven understanding of it) is changing, and how it's not. In Chicago, the picture's very different, depending on whether you look at neighborhoods or schools. Posted at 2:57 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/28/12 Adam Dunn's Historic Strikeout Rate and the Longest Home Run in Baseball History (Allegedly) The slugger has his power stroke back and is hitting home runs at his usual clip, but is also on pace to easily surpass the major-league record for strikeouts. The only White Sox player ever to compare was a fellow power hitter, whose blast out of Comiskey is, rightfully or not, often mentioned as the longest ever hit. Posted at 7:03 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/28/12 Mayor Emanuel, Republicans, and the Machine Want bipartisanship? Democrats and Republicans fight it out at the national level, but here in Chicago, they've been good frenemies since the first days of Richard J. Daley's reign. Posted at 3:40 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/27/12 Walter Paepcke, Founder of the Aspen Institute and Chicago Patron of Mid-Century Modernism The second-generation Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke not only ran one of the city's largest companies, he introduced advertising's factory town to modernism and founded the country's most famous big-ideas festival. But he couldn't have done it without his wife, her diplomat brother, and a trio of University of Chicago intellectuals. Posted at 5:34 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/27/12 Chicago Pot Decriminalization Ordinance Puff-Puff-Passes Over Tokin' Resistance After months of discussion and weeks of debate, Chicago's move to decriminalize low-level marijuana possession sails through City Council with virtually no dissent. Posted at 2:17 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	06/27/12 The Geography of Chicago Schools, Homicides, and Poverty A look at how CPS school performance, socioeconomic data—compiled by CPS to help determine selective-school placement—and 2012 homicides are distributed across the city. Posted at 1:05 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/26/12 Segregation in Chicago and Chicagoland, 1990-2000 The Chicago suburbs have grown considerably more diverse over the past couple decades, as maps of census tracts dramatically show. The city proper, however, continues to evolve much more slowly. Posted at 3:59 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/26/12 Anthony Rizzo Debuts Tonight: Get Excited, But Not Too Excited After a strong 2011 in the Pacific Coast League, Anthony Rizzo disappointed in his first 50 big-league games. But after returning to the minors, this time as a Cub, Rizzo started the season even better... and he has a friendly new park in which to try again. Posted at 1:10 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/25/12 Chicago Pensions: The Pressure of Boomers and Retirements Retiring teachers puts a lot of pressure on Chicago's biggest retirement fund, which has declined from 100-percent funded at the beginning of last decade to the end. And there are a lot more teachers planning to retire soon. Posted at 5:04 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	06/25/12 White Sox Complete Semi-Depressing Trade For Kevin Youkilis, Improve Worst Position In Baseball The White Sox picked up a three-time All Star for a negligible amount of money and some spare parts, mostly in return for giving the Red Sox the future right to not have Kevin Youkilis. He's no longer the fearsome hitter of the Red Sox's championship teams, but the Greek God of Walks will be an improvement over the White Sox's league-worst third basemen. Posted at 1:15 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/22/12 Mayor Daley Does 'What's My Line?' Rahm Emanuel's forthcoming appearance on the new Dick Wolf serial is hardly the first network cameo by a Chicago mayor—Richard J. Daley lent his presence to CBS's guessing game in his first year. Posted at 6:25 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/22/12 Could Chicago Legalize Marijuana? Not Really. The marijuana-decriminalization ordinance has some people worried (and some pleased) that it's a slippery slope to legalization. Don't wait up. Posted at 4:55 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (4)
	06/22/12 Franklin Zimring: Winning the War on Drug Violence Without Winning the War on Drugs New York City has had no success in decreasing illegal-drug use over the past couple decades, but violence associated with drugs has dropped dramatically. A Berkeley (and ex-U. of C.) law prof talks about the implications. Posted at 2:39 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/21/12 The Chicago Drug Trade, Then and Now How Chicago went from a general tolerance of drug use as a "private concern," to the proto-Hamsterdam of the Levee District, to the open-air south- and west-side drug markets we see today. Posted at 7:33 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/21/12 RIP LeRoy Neiman, the Pop George Bellows of Big-Time American Sports The court painter to America's athletic royalty, Hugh Hefner's bon vivant in residence, and a legendary graduate of the School of the Art Institute, passes away at the age of 91. Posted at 3:36 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/21/12 Why Does McDonald's Food Look Different in Advertising Than It Does In the Store? The difference between making the sausage and making the sausage look pretty is a food stylist, a photographer, and a photo editor who has an eye for things like the angle of the curve of the melted cheese. Posted at 11:15 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/20/12 The Miami Heat and the Timely Aging of Dwyane Wade The hometown hero, who traded supremacy with LeBron James and Chris Bosh throughout their ultimately unsuccessful run to the playoffs last year, has ceded leadership of the team to his younger teammate. And it's made them a better team, and the likely champions this year. Posted at 7:12 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/20/12 3 Reasons Why Chicago's Marijuana Decriminalization Ordinance Will Probably Pass The ordinance has the support of a majority of aldermen, and heads to committee this week before going to the full Council next week. The mayor, money, and changing times should be enough to push it through. Posted at 1:18 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
	06/19/12 Americans Like the U.S. Postal Service More than McDonald's Which isn't to say they don't like McDonald's: Americans' satisfaction with fast food restaurants of all kinds is increasing, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, despite the criticism directed at them. Posted at 5:42 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/19/12 Illinois's Problem: Not Enough Coffee An investigation by the Pantagraph finds that Illinois taxpayers spend a surprising amount on coffee for their legislators—but is it strikingly high or shockingly low? Posted at 4:08 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/19/12 The Wonderful Physics of R.A. Dickey's Knuckleball The Mets' unlikely star is putting up the best numbers in baseball, and is coming off back-to-back one-hitters, the first time that's been done in 23 years. The research of a University of Illinois professor explains how he's mastered his mysterious pitch. Posted at 2:25 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/18/12 Why the Danes and the Dutch Are So Much Better at City Planning Than Us Three Chicago aldermen went on a fact-finding trip to Copenhagen, along with Amsterdam one of the destination cities for civic pols looking to learn about sustainable city planning. Why are they so good at it? A long head start, for one thing. Posted at 6:58 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/18/12 How Many Murders Happen on Chicago Weekends? Whenever crime spikes, weekend shootings make the news. But what constitutes a peaceful Chicago weekend, and how many homicides makes an unusually violent one? Posted at 4:14 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
	06/15/12 The Geography of Marijuana-Possession Arrests in Chicago A look at where misdemeanor pot busts occurred through the first few months of this year, from a high of 541 in the 28th Ward—40 percent higher than the runner-up—to a low of 15 in the 43rd Ward. Posted at 5:01 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/15/12 Decriminalizing Marijuana: If It's Good Enough For New York, It's Good Enough For Us After months of occasional debate and intensive reporting—and a couple weeks after Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo hailed such an idea—Mayor Emanuel backs a modified version of a proposed marijuana decriminalization ordinance. Posted at 1:28 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	06/15/12 Chicago Housing Prices Still Down, Rents Climbing Foreclosures increased again in the Chicago area, threatening to push housing prices down even further, which are already at pre-2001 levels. Meanwhile, rent is going up—and rental incomes have vastly increased. Posted at 11:14 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	06/14/12 The Tight Social Network of Chicago Crime Violent crime—in Chicago and elsewhere—tends to be limited to a proportionally small, socially-networked population. New technologies are beginning to illuminate the connections. Posted at 6:56 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	06/14/12 New York Plans to Lease Parking Meters, Will Probably Not Screw It Up As Badly as Chicago Despite Chicago's boondoggle, NYC is interested in getting some private money out of its public meters. They're off to a better start, but there are even more lessons to learn from our debacle. Posted at 4:23 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/14/12 Chris Sale: The Best Pitcher in Baseball? The White Sox's young left-hander hasn't just been the best pitcher in a deep rotation—he's ever so slightly outpitched perennial Cy Young candidate Justin Verlander, making him arguably the best pitcher in baseball so far. Posted at 12:15 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/12/12 Chicago Crime in the Great Recession: Not a Wave, But a Bump Folk wisdom suggests that recessions cause deprivation, and deprivation causes crime. Generally speaking, it's not the case, but in Chicago there were noticeable variations in the crime data during the worst of the unemployment spiral. Posted at 4:49 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/12/12 'Chicago Tonight' Talks Chicago Infrastructure Trust Why court a public-private infrastructure trust to retrofit city buildings—and, in the future, probably much more—when we're still suffering the hangover from the parking meters? Carol Marin and a wonktable ask, and occasionally answer, the questions. Posted at 11:49 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/11/12 Cubs Sign Mysterious Cuban Prospect Jorge Soler For nine years and $30 million, Epstein lands a 20-year-old with nonexistent stats but a lot of praise from scouts. Why spend so much? Because after July, they wouldn't have been able to spend a tenth of that. Posted at 4:59 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/08/12 These Are Latter Days We Know: Music For Recessions Uncle Tupelo, the Mekons, the Waco Brothers, and other timeless tunes for our times: music for apocalypse, be it financial, religious, or otherwise. Posted at 3:11 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	06/08/12 Pete Cosey and My Favorite Album Cover In the late sixties, Chess drafted guitar Renaissance man Pete Cosey to hep up the sound of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. The result was deeply influential, and also deeply resented by both blues greats, which led to a classic and oddball bit of music marketing. Posted at 10:55 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/07/12 Politics Roundup: CTA Red Line Shutdown, CTU Strike Vote Plus: private prisons and immigration in Crete and beyond; negative equity in the Chicagoland area; the ongoing costs of NATO to the Metra and the CPD; and more Posted at 5:27 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/07/12 So You Say You Want a Revolution: Where Is the Scott Walker of Illinois? The emergence of a governor like Scott Walker isn't just a matter of finding the right individual—it's a combination of national political trends, regional political cultures, legislative arcana, and pure luck. We'd all love to see the plan. Posted at 1:49 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/06/12 Ray Bradbury and the Search for Mr. Electrico The mysterious magician who inspired Ray Bradbury on Labor Day in Waukegan, 1932—Cairo native, defrocked minister, and veteran of the Ardennes—remains lost in a nest of circuses that converged on the city that day. Posted at 7:33 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/06/12 Happy Birthday to the Chicago "L": The First Article About the Transportation that Defines Chicago "Apparently sane gentlemen, entire strangers to one another, freely discussed the novel, but none the less satisfactory journey without the usual formality of introductions." Posted at 4:16 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/06/12 Five Or So Lessons From the Wisconsin Recall Election Why Tom Barrett may have actually benefited from Citizens United but been doomed by Wisconsin recall-finance laws; the quiet tensions between Barrett and labor; why labor isn't doomed; and more Posted at 1:00 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/05/12 'Watch Dogs' and a Brief History of Apocalyptic Chicago Video Games From Michael Jordan battling his way through a Goose Island factory, to the WTO and Knights Templar leveling the city in a terrorist attack, to Al Capone's army of mafia zombies: what Chicago looked like after the fall, then and now. Posted at 6:56 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	06/05/12 TIF Money For Chicago Public Schools: Like TIFs in Miniature A new report by a Roosevelt prof highlights where TIF money spent on schools has gone, and to what kind of schools it's gone too—and how it mirrors the dilemma of tax increment finance generally. Posted at 3:34 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	06/05/12 Red Line Slow Zone Repair: The Worst Stretch of El in Chicago Almost the entire south-side branch of the Red Line will shut down next year for five months, all the way from Chinatown to 95th. Tens of thousands of feet of track will be replaced, repairing the most slow-zone ridden line on the entire system. Posted at 10:19 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	06/04/12 Adam Dunn: Literally Crushing the Ball This Year After suffering one of the worst seasons in modern baseball history last year, Adam Dunn is hitting the ball as hard as anyone in baseball—and averaging career highs in isolated power, strikeout rate, and walk rate. Plus: the best home run of the season so far. Posted at 5:36 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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