What did your city do last week?

Chicago killed it. A snapshot of recent city building action:

Friday (February 24) - Purchased 100 locally manufactured cops cars from the Torrence Avenue Ford Plant. Commited to buy 400 more. "The single largest order ever for the Ford Interceptor."

Saturday - Announced "the largest public housing redevelopment effort in the history of the United States." 

Monday - Directed $11 million to support the growth of women- and minority-owned business.

Tuesday - Announced five new schools focused exclusively on tech skills and career readiness. 

Wednesday - Unveiled forward looking Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs. Also announced agreement to retire two coal-fired power plants.

Thursday - Joined with President Clinton and announced the Chicago Infrastructure Trust to invest more than $200 million in energy efficiency, generate 2,000 jobs and save taxpayers some $20 million annually.

Friday -  Announced $25,000 signing bonuses to recruit top performing principals to under-performing schools. Also annnounced the City website is available in 64 languages.

50P1Q in Second City

via Brand Nua

Chicago's next great park

City talk

David Brooks writes about the Splendor of Cities from Chicago's mayoral campaign trail:

Chicago has its problems: it suffers under one of the biggest debt loads in the country. But it has thrived because it has had good leadership, a constantly updated housing stock, a good business environment and an ethos that attracts talent and celebrates blunt conversation.

Chicago's next green move

You can see by the Q&A exchange captured in the Green Growth Platform for Chicago's Next Mayor why some say the city's sustainability campaign is a public relations fraud.

I'm not that cynical. But clearly the city's journey to become "the greenest in America" remains in its infancy.

Chicago has yet to deploy basic recycling to all homes. The city struggles to demonstrate any real leadership on keeping the carp outta the Great Lakes. Then there's the basic issue of water quality:

Q: Will you publicly support disinfecting the sewage effluent that is pumped into the Chicago-area waterways?

A (via Rahm Emanuel): Disinfection is a standard practice around the country and is long overdue in Chicago.

Shameless in Chicago

Starts Sunday.

Why is Illinois so corrupt

Shane Tritsch isn't the first to ask the question. (Politico, for one, did awhile back) But his thorough investigative piece in Chicago magazine relays a reasonable array of factors that inform the answer. Apparently the graft really started to get thick with Bathhouse John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna in 1869. All downhill from there:

Over the past 40 years, about 1,500 people—including 30 Chicago aldermen—have been convicted for bribery, extortion, embezzlement, tax fraud, and other forms of corruption, according to Dick Simpson, head of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Three former Illinois governors have gone to prison, and a fourth soon could be locked up if a jury convicts Blagojevich in his upcoming retrial on corruption and conspiracy charges.

Futuristic Chicago museum could open in 2015

The proposed Chicago branch of the National Museum of Health and Medicine aspires to "showcase the absolute cutting edge in museum science and provide a testbed for the development of new technologies for scientific visualization, interactive graphics and biomedical knowledge management," according to the online brochure.

The building's exterior facade, for example, will project digital exhibits and be powered in part by the energy of people moving through the building. The spokeman for the architectural firm leading the building renovation explains:

When the museum is lightly populated, the marquee will exude a quiet energy. At peak times it will visibly flicker and pulse from the physical presence of the building occupants.

Chicago Mayor Daley on Education

Prior to accepting the Global Metro Award at a recent Brookings' summit, Mayor Daley spoke about the importance of establishing a city-wide "learning environment."

The Third City by Larry Bennett

The author explains the zeitgeist of Chicago.

A brief history of Northerly Island

Blair Kamin recaps three major turning points that led to today's presentation of a plan to transform Chicago's former Meigs Field airstrip into a spectacular public park. 

In 1996, after [Chicago Mayor] Daley announced he would close Meigs and turn it into a park, then-Gov. Jim Edgar pushed the General Assembly to authorize a state takeover of the airport, leading to a deal that kept Meigs open through 2002. Then, in 2003, as the Iraq war began, Daley bulldozed the airport on the flimsy pretext that terrorists might crash small planes into downtown skyscrapers.

More at the Northerly Island Planning page on Facebook. 

Green Alleys in Chicago

Architect Janet Attarian, who directs the Chicago Dept of Transportation's Streetscape and Sustainable Design Program, describes the city's green alley initiative. 130 down. Approx 13,000 to go.


(via the McGraw Hill Construction's Video Library)

Chicago mayor race

Over the weekend a trio of candidates - Rahm Emanuel, US Rep. Danny Davis and IL State Senator James Meeks - officially announced their bids to become the next mayor of Chicago.

Emanuel, a former three-term Congressman with a cool $1M in his warchest, also launched this ad:



UPDATE: Carol Moseley Braun officially gets in

The busiest corner in Chicago filmed by Edison

This video is part of the Erie Railroad Series in Thomas Edison's film catalog.

Plan of Chicago 1909

The All American Train

Trains magazine names the Empire Builder the "ultimate passenger train" in their just released 70th anniversary issue. The Amtrak line, which runs between Chicago and Portland, OR, carries 700 guests per day, in each direction. This image, from a 1959 brochure, describes the accomodations. Notice the "superbly appointed lounge - a rendezvous for fun."

Chicago's (Not) Sanitary and Ship Canal

According to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Reporter Dan Egan's latest investigative piece Chicago's water strategy is to siphon off Lake Michigan and shit in the Gulf Coast:

Chicago has been treating Lake Michigan like a giant toilet tank since it engineered a crude sewer system to suck from the lake about 6 billion gallons of water per day, a flow big enough to drain a body of water the size of Lake Winnebago in a single summer.

You can think of that colossal water grab as a super-size flush, inside a continent-sized commode. Chicagoland's raw sewage once plunged into the man-made Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and that canal whooshed the Windy City stew into the Mississippi River and down to the Gulf of Mexico, Chicago's toilet bowl.

"B" is where the bikes are

My kind of town Chicago is

$2.6 Billion for Midwest Rail

The Obama Administration today announced $8 billion to expand passenger rail in America. Sadly, investment in high-speed (200+ miles per hour) service for the Midwest is limited.

Click map for larger version.

Click here (PDF) for the full list of rail projects.