Ad Categories: City Life

Rahm tapped this veteran politico (his career spans from Harold to Barack) and papa to Chance (No. 67) to help repair his frayed relations with community leaders and residents, particularly blacks. It seems to be working.

Duckworth boasts a dream résumé for a politician on the rise: war hero, staunch advocate for veterans, and mother of a baby girl. No wonder she’s being wooed by many Dems to challenge the Republican senator Mark Kirk in 2016.

He’s giving his three-Michelin-star Alinea a new look and a novel approach. No doubt foodies the world over will be clamoring to get in.

The dean of all things regional Mexican has a new concept coming to the West Loop this spring, a lock for one of the year’s buzziest spots.

He has been at the helm of the city’s largest nonprofit for nearly 30 years. Next up: a stage adaptation of 2666, the posthumous masterpiece by Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño.

Rauner (No. 3) famously loves former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels—so he wasted no time snagging Barclay, one of Daniels’s most trusted advisers.

On Sundays, the outspoken and politically active pastor of the largest black church in Illinois leads a flock of 15,000. Mondays through Fridays, Governor Rauner’s newly appointed education czar directs a flock of more than two million public school students.

Just call him the union whisperer. Last year, he hammered out both a crucial firefighter contract and the first police deal to pass without an arbiter since 1996.

Goodman’s fast-growing real estate firm is taking over the West Loop, gobbling up properties and building new offices for Uber, Twitter, Google, and Ideo. 

The head and face of public arts in the city has a big year ahead: in April, the new four-day Lake FX Summit + Expo; in October, the launch of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.