* Steven Vance has long been one of my favorite Chicago bloggers, writing about biking and other transportation issues at Steven Can Plan. So I was excited to see that he’s launched a new project with John Greenfield of Vote With Your Feet: Grid Chicago, a blog about sustainable transportation. They’re off to a good start: here’s how bike lanes are made.

* Another one of my favorite Chicago blogs is Robert Powers’s A Chicago Sojourn; I like it not just because I share an interest in mid-century modern architecture, but because it’s a very democratic architecture blog. It’s as much about neighborhood and suburb architecture, the architecture people actually live, as about the famous architecture everyone knows. So I’m glad to see there’s a new blog in that vein: The Steppes of Chicago by Dan Kelly.

What do I mean by "democratic"? For example, here’s a two–part post about the history and architecture of a pumping station in Mayfair. It’s a pleasing change of pace from the usual downtown-centric focus of Chicago architecture writing.