Whet Moser

Harvard sociologist Edward Glaeser, author of "The Triumph of the City," notes another civic triumph: declining segregation nationwide. But one city's triumph is another's failure. Read more

Does global warming have anything to do with the fact that Chicago might break a January record for high temperatures today? Yes, probably, and probably not. It depends on what you're asking, and whom. Read more

Is the community organizer's name intoned by Newt Gingrich to exploit anti-Semitism? No, just anti-Satanism, something we can all get behind. It's just the latest smoke from the embers of the culture wars. Read more

The state continues to labor under budget deficits, debt service, and unpaid bills extending far off into the future. And the drivers of those debts are increasingly difficult to rein in. Read more

Out of all major U.S. cities, only Los Angeles compares to Chicago in the number of gang members—and Chicago may well have more than the nation's second-largest city. It has considerably more than New York. What went wrong, and what can be done to address it? Read more

The magazine that fomented the Occupy movement in the first place expects 50,000 strong in Chicago this May. But neither G8 nor NATO is the sexy, controversial target that Wall Street and the WTO have been. Will the summits, and the protests, underwhelm? Read more

A map of Chicago using geotagged tweets shows the corridors of travel from one point to another, based on who's tweeting from where. It mostly looks like you'd expect, with one mystery. Read more

The USDA released new school-lunch guidelines today, which define how much tomato paste on a slice of pizza is equivalent to a vegetable, and doesn't restrict potatoes... though the National Potato Council is still concerned that their prize product is considered a "second-class" vegetable. Read more

After a long two years of trying to court the center with frustrated attempts at centrist bipartisanship, the White House tries a stump speech for the SOTU. The trick to the center? It's not a "center." Read more