Ad Categories: City Life

The top story of February was probably the biggest yet least surprising story of 2011: a former Daley fundraiser officially becomes Da Mare-elect, and faces a lot of problems left over from Da Mare.

A timelapse of (almost all of) the 2011 homicides in Chicago, mapped onto the city grid.

The very end of January brought an epic snowstorm, two of the year’s best photographs, and memories of the blizzard that ended Michael Bilandic’s hold on the mayor’s office.

Ron Paul is getting the attention his fervent supporters believe he deserves… but not the coverage. When he was publishing his now-infamous newsletters, was the GOP candidate a racist, opportunist, or just clueless?

A 2007 investigative report by the Reporter turns into a $355 million settlement in 2011. But there’s more to the story, and to the problem—a very long history.

A look at the overlap of Chicago gang-controlled areas of the city and how that compares with the distribution of homicides in 2011.

Jonathan Mahler, Mick Dumke, and Alex Kotlowitz: three writers on Benton Harbor, Michigan, its economic and social challenges, and the many attempts to address them.

Croats, Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Koreans talk about their holiday traditions as part of the MSI’s seven-decade Christmas Around the World tradition.

Evidence of progress from the annals of airline crash statistics. Plus: why Alec Baldwin should have put his cell phone away, and why reading about airline disasters or pretending that I’m in a Galaxie 500 video makes me feel safer.