A look at the economic geography of Chicago, following the most recent census—from the extremely depressed community areas of Fuller Park and Riverdale to the Near North, which has by far the highest incomes in the city, over ten times that of Fuller Park.
Plus: Art Shay and the greatest racquetball photo ever taken; the growing disparity between breast cancer mortality among black and white women in Chicago; and more
One reason for increasing pensions? Decreasing government. The 2002 Early Retirement Initiative got a lot of people off the government payroll… and onto the pension rolls.
Unloved and unwanted pension-reform negotiations slip between the deadline. It was probably inevitable, given the general assembly’s problems keeping its own pension fund in order—the worst in the state. On the other hand, it’s probably for the best to keep the bill in the air for awhile.
A downstate representative from Murphysboro gets mad, and his rant on teacher-pension funding goes viral, thanks to some paper-throwing and barnyard epithets. What’s bothering him: Michael Madigan, or something more?
NATO wanted to have the summit here for geopolitical messaging. The city wanted it as an “open for business” sign to the international community. Does that make up for the as-yet-unknown tab?
Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula—a relatively narrow outcropping just north of Traverse City, with its collection of lakeside towns, farms, beaches, and rolling hills—was a fairly well-kept secret until
a few years ago. That’s when Mario Batali, the New York-based celebrity chef who has a summer home in Northport, started promoting the farm-to-table restaurants, cafés, shops, and farmers’ markets like only a TV personality can. The buzz is deserved and the peninsula’s towns are thriving on the attention. Connecting them all is M-22, a gorgeous stretch of road that follows Lake Michigan.
The American Planning Association put its journalism awards on hiatus because not enough people cared. Has urban-planning journalism disappeared, or just migrated online?
As the city looks to reduce its budget and its pension obligations, it’s inevitable that public-safety employees would come under the green eyeshades. For all the fuss about clouted folks taking big pensions, the real problem is much more powerful: math.
In the first few months of the year, homicides are up by half over last year, though shootings are up only 14 percent. It sounds odd, but it happens. Beneath the basic crime data there’s a lot of underlying complexity, but it’s not well-researched or understood.
