Entries associated with the tag "Chicago":

Admit it. You've always wanted to know where Chicago's last wood-block pavement, tied houses, and black-on-yellow street signs are -- not to mention what became of Almond Street and DeKalb Avenue. Now you can, because the folks at Forgotten Chicago remember. (The "tied houses" are a parable of do-gooder regulation backfiring.) The site is Not Safe For Work...because if you are a true Chicago geek you may well forget to do any.

H/t to the Newberry Library.

From the website of the Chicago Reporter:

"Nearly half of Chicago police officers sued for fatally shooting civilians were previously sued for misconduct. Some say that should be a warning sign, but is anyone paying attention?"

For those who are, the Reporter and ColorLines magazine have developed a database of police shootings since 2000.

Lead reporter Jeff Kelly Lowenstein:

"The Chicago Reporter examined 85 fatal police shootings since 2000 and identified 17 wrongful death suits filed in federal court using the victims’ names. Though the Chicago Police Department does not disclose the names of officers who shoot civilians, the Reporter found the names of 20 officers who were identified in the lawsuits as a shooter. The Reporter’s investigation into the officers’ previous litigation history found that nine—or 45 percent—of them had been sued previously in either federal or circuit court."

Bear in mind that there are 13,000 Chicago cops. So this group is neither characteristic of the department nor too large to get the careful attention it deserves.

"These police officers’ actions, which have cost the city more than $7 million, resulted in lawsuits that were filed at the same time when most fatal police shootings appear to be declared justified."

Really, if you want to govern halfway decently, all you have to do is ask yourself, "What would George W. Bush do?" and then do the opposite. So I can't beef too much about the Progressive States Network. Except when they're simplistic and Pollyannaish.

Simplistic, as when they tout state or regional "cap and trade" systems for controlling carbon dioxide emissions, without acknowledging why such programs need to be national and, probably, international -- namely, that it may be cheaper for CO2 emitters to move their emissions than to curtail them. (I should add that this willful blindness to Econ 101 when trying to "do something" is not unique to PSN.)

Pollyannaish, as when they do a drive-by on Illinois' trainwreck of a legislative session using the hilariously inappropriate headline, "Progress Amidst Conflict." Their summary gives equal space to a new law forbidding state pension funds from investing in companies associated with Sudan and to the transit situation (which account I quote in its entirety): "The legislature also failed to pass any fiscal relief for the ailing Chicago Transit Authority, causing likely fare hikes, layoffs, and service cuts." Progressives are better served by Oregon US Rep. Peter DeFazio's harsh words, front-paged by the Chicago Tribune: "The state and the governor are walking away from a minimal responsibility to maintain an existing system."

You gotta like Witold Rybczynski. In Slate last week, not only did he praise Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center, he did so in the form of a slide show accompanied by actual reasoned text, not the jittery and isolated clauses of PowerPointspeak.

Rybczynski's making what I take to be a fairly conservative point, since he's riffing on a forthcoming book, The Architecture of the Absurd: How "Genius" Disfigured a Practical Art, written by cranky former Boston University president John Silber and praised by (shudder) George Will. But it's also a point often made by those of us who wish architects paid more attention to the people who have to live and work in their creations.

In the case of our library, Rybczynski calls it "decorated architecture" and a "Beaux-Arts box," adding that its architects Hammond, Beeby & Babka "simplified the form of the building, which allowed them to increase the quality of the materials. The interior walls, for example, are hand-laid plaster, rather than cheap wallboard; furniture is durable oak, rather than metal and plastic."

OK, but I've never been crazy about the building's internal circulation -- I mean, the long and convoluted path one has to take to get to the books. At the risk of being accused of piling provincialism on reaction, I'd have to say that the new Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana (which also occupies an entire city block in a downtown), does a better job of welcoming its many users. And, in the sense we're using here, it's not an icon either.

My grandfather worked security at the 1933-34 Chicago world's fair, "A Century of Progress." But until I saw Lisa Schrenk's new book Building a Century of Progress, I had no idea what a non-sinecure that was:

"The start of the extravagant closing ceremony also served as a spontaneous signal for a growing crescendo of carnivalesque hysteria to spin out of control. Hordes of fairgoers began appropriating unique mementos of the magnificent event. In the Halloween-night frenzy, people broke into many of the exhibition pavilions and walked away with furniture, light fixtures, signs, and decorative building details. Not a shred of the sixty-five pennants that lined the Avenue of Flags that day survived. Even shrubs and trees were yanked out of the ground. Guards, many of whom ended the night requiring first aid, did their best to combat the full-scale pillaging. ...Fortunately, most of the damage was to objects that were already scheduled for disposal as part of the planned demolition of the exposition." (page 254)

Schrenk teaches at Norwich University and used to be education director at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation. In fairness, her generously illustrated book is more concerned about the Apollonian architecture than the Dionysian society surrounding it. The designers, she writes, sought to create "a distinctively American modern architecture that was clearly relevant to the times." (page 4) Most regular people, however, opted for colonial. Evidently they didn't take to heart the fair's amazing motto: "SCIENCE FINDS -- INDUSTRY APPLIES -- MAN CONFORMS."

Hear from the author yourself Thursday evening 6:30 pm at Roosevelt University ($).

Reader readers knew about Wangari Maathai and her tree-planting Green Belt Movement more than a decade before she won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize -- and before a change of Kenyan government turned her from an activist on the run to Kenya's assistant minister for the environment.

She got her higher education in the US in the 1960s, and not all of it in the classroom. As she told the Progressive in 2005, "While I was in the United States, Kenya became independent from the British, in 1963. For me, it was a moment to celebrate that finally we were free, as Martin Luther King was crying out at that time. And I thought we were going to enjoy our freedom, we were going to be happy, we were not going to be oppressed anymore. Little did I know what lay ahead. But when I encountered violations of human rights by my own people, my experience in the United States gave me the courage to stand up and say this is not right."

She's back in town this weekend to discuss her book Unbowed: A Memoir at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel, cosponsored by the university and the Chicago Humanities Festival (Sunday -- free but reservations required), and to dedicate a native woodlands garden at the Al Raby High School for Community and Environment at 3545 West Fulton (Saturday). 

"No building can be considered truly green unless it's in a green urban neighborhood" -- that's how the Chicago-based Congress for New Urbanism puts it in the press release announcing the 238 pilot projects that will test out the LEED for Neighborhood Developments standard.

Chicagoans involved in the development of these standards include architect Doug Farr, the Center for Neighborhood Technology's Sharon Feigon, and CNU's John Norquist and Susan Mudd. Chicago-area developments involved in piloting the standards are 108 North State (AKA Block 37), South Chicago LEED ND initiative, Prairie Crossing's Station Village in Grayslake, Briar Ridge in Northbrook, and Whistler Crossing in Riverdale. (Full list in PDF here).

The voluntary rating system will rank neighborhoods on standards grouped into three categories:

* smart location and linkage, including "brownfield redevelopment" (worth up to 2 points) and "reduced automobile dependence" (up to 8 points);

* neighborhood pattern and design, including "affordable rental housing" (up to 2 points) and "walkable streets" (up to 8 points);

* green construction and technology, including "solar orientation" (1 point) and "stormwater management" (up to 5 points).

Read all the pilot standards so far in a 161-page PDF here.

Paul Street, formerly of the Chicago Urban League and now blogging from Iowa City, summarizes the Democratic front runners' position on reviving nuclear power, and questions Obama's image construction as opposed to his reality:

"Edwards has the right answer: nukes cost too much and are unsafe.  Hillary waffles but agrees with Edwards that nukes are too dangerous at present.  It's left to Obama to actually advocate 'explor[ing] nuclear power as part of the energy mix' (as if it hasn't already been deeply explored for decades and found to be [a] too expensive and [b] too unsafe)."

Whence Obama's position?

"For a big part of the answer, please follow this link to Barack Obama's  'Top Contributors' on the 'Open Secrets' web site of the Center for Responsive Politics - the venerable campaign finance watchdog group in Washington DC.  There you will see that Obama's third largest campaign contributor (after Goldman Sachs and Lehman Bros.) so far is Exelon Corporation ($191,000 through the second quarter of 2007).  Exelon is the parent company of Chicago's notorious Commonwealth Edison utility and is owner and operator of what it calls the "nation’s largest fleet of nuclear energy plants."

Obama's already shown a depressing willingness to truckle to the worst of the Democratic Party -- its unwanted and unnecessary intervention in the suburban primary race to replace Henry Hyde, and its coronation of an incompetent County Board chairman on the hereditary principle. Is this more of the same, or just a reasonable difference of opinion?

I wasn't too thrilled a few months back when Conscious Choice gave generous marks to the city of Chicago on sustainability ("Grade inflation in transit world"). Now in the new In These Times -- yet another can't-skip periodical on my list -- Michael Burgner reports that CC editor Charles Shaw has declined to provide the magazine's 11-point sustainability evaluation system to a senior fellow at the Army Environmental Policy Institute. Said Shaw, "Why would I want to make the army a more efficient, sustainable killing machine?....They see that green is sexy and cool and that people don’t like oil corporations right now. They think they can dress themselves up with it.”

I take his point: a torture prison with a green roof isn't something an American should be proud of. But did Shaw ever ask himself the same question about the corruption machine that is the city of Chicago under Richard M. Daley?

2007 isn't just the year of the money in Springfield, it may also be the year of the process -- and if you believe some good-government advocates, a better process might be just what the CTA needs for a life-saving cash transfusion. Now that the Capital Investment Accountability Act has passed out of committee and into the full house, here's the simple version; you can also check out the Daily Southtown opinion piece by Michael McLaughlin of the Metropolitan Planning Council.

The bill (House Bill 801, same as Senate Bill 1582) sets up four state transportation goals. Everything the state spends on transportation is supposed to contribute to:

(1) efficiency -- meaning reducing delays and unreliability, shifting modes (probably from cars to transit but it doesn't say) and managing demand,

(2) economic development -- that is, putting money back into local and state economies,

(3) integration of land use and transportation planning, and

(4) safety -- meaning reducing crashes, increasing security, and encouraging use of "physically active modes" (presumably walking and biking, as opposed to driving).

If the bill is passed, a new Statewide Prioritization Committee will turn these four goals into 5-10 specific criteria for judging all proposed highway, railroad, and transit projects. Judging will be done by each Metropolitan Planning Organization on the local level, a new District Prioritization Committee for each of the state's nine transportation districts at the regional level, and the statewide committee for statewide projects. (FYI Chicago's six-county region is one district.) Within limits, the lower-level groups can each choose how to weight the criteria but they can't just trash 'em.

Top-scoring projects get passed up to the statewide committee, which puts them all together, and on January 15, 2009, the statewide committee is to deliver its "comprehensive project prioritization plan" to the General Assembly and the governor. (If Illinois' political culture should reassert itself and members of the General Assembly decide to clout through something that didn't pass muster normally, they'd have to do it in public, but the law doesn't otherwise constrain them by requiring supermajority votes or anything.)

In other words, a public process to generate rail, road, and bus plans based on stated goals and professional expertise, not political clout. 

Will this complex but transparent and open process inspire more tax support for transportation, including Chicago-area mass transit? That's one of MPC's goals, but for the CTA there's little good news yet, as Sick Transit Chicago reports.

An hour and a half on the late train at the end of a long day is a recipe for walking insomnia -- can't get comfortable, can't sleep, can't concentrate on the day's mail, you know the drill. But the other night I got lucky, because my shoulder bag contained a fresh copy of Nothing: Something to Believe In, by Nica Lalli.

For Chicago history buffs it includes a child's-eye view of William Singer's mayoral campaign against Richard I. For religion buffs a dismayingly honest account of her various encounters with organized religion as the child of Italian and Jewish parents with no religious affiliations. For me, it did what a good book does. When I looked up, it was an hour later and my surroundings were unfamiliar. For a moment, I thought I'd read right past my stop.

The Chicago Tribune's 2-part series on families moving ever farther out from the city had a nice conceit -- watching how people cycle through an inner-suburban Berwyn bungalow and where they go afterward. But with all the talk about looking for the right shops in exurban Yorkville, there was little said about the tradeoff of more driving (to work and everywhere else) involved in spreading out so far. And nary a mention of the Center for Neighborhood Technology's ongoing work on a housing + transportation index, which will allow people to check suburban and exurban "affordability" more realistically by factoring transportation costs into the decision on where or whether to move. (In addition to what's on CNT's Web site, a user-friendly version of the index is expected to be out by July.)

Keep in mind, of course, that CNT's no fan of "sprawl." But why does the local paper of record need to be?

A recent Illinois law requires the 49 municipalities in the state with less than 10 percent affordable housing -- all affluent suburbs of Chicago -- to come up with plans to make it easier for working people to live there. Charles Hoch, who teaches urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has read the plans submitted by the 36 suburbs that chose to comply. His report appears in the winter issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association, not available online to nonmembers. A 2005 PDF version of the report is here; a recent press release here.

Hoch wasn't impressed. "Only five of the documents described how changes in local housing policy objectives and regulations could foster affordable housing on local sites. Most plans included short bullet lists of generalized regulatory, administrative, and fiscal incentives. They used vivid language to explain their commitment to current [i.e., exclusionary] land use, and vague language to explain their commitment to affordable housing. Each had a unique and compelling description of the hardship compliance would create, and a derived and dreamy description of the policies and regulations they would use to foster affordable housing."

He gives details on Highland Park's plan, which is serious, and Wilmette's, which is not. He also decries the state's lack of follow-up: "In Illinois the state housing development agency received no funds to implement the act. The most innovative leadership came from the planners and community development activists selected from local nonprofit organizations and the few municipalities with affordable housing policies in place. These people were invited by the state finance agency to help ccordinate subregional workshops for local municipal officials and staff in the months after the new state law was enacted. The lack of active, dedicated, and competent state planning staff in Illinois placed responsibility for sustained planning support of this type in the hands of nonprofit and philanthropic agencies."

There's something inherently funny (if not annoying) about "National Historic Chemical Landmarks," but organizers of the American Chemical Society convention at McCormick Place in March came up with five landmarks conferees can visit. Three of them are hours out of town -- two downstate (in Urbana and Peoria) and one on the far side of Indianapolis (in Greencastle).

In the Chicago area there's only Universal Oil Products' Riverside Laboratory in McCook, where scientists patented almost 9,000 commercial applications of petroleum between 1921 and '55 -- and Hull House, home base of pioneer industrial toxicologist and occupational-health physician Alice Hamilton. One landmark for the polluter, one for the pollution fighter. Hey, it all goes into the GDP.

Conscious Choice has graded the City of Chicago on 11 aspects of sustainability, one of which is whether we have a "world class transit system." The magazine didn't just pull their B- grade out of a hat, they asked some knowledgeable folks:

"Dr. Howard Ehrman from the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization says that no other city in the U.S. 'comes anywhere close to the lack of funding for public transportation than the city of Chicago.' Ehrman says that for the last 32 years the city has spent $3 million per year, or $1 per person out of the city’s budget, on the CTA. The next city up the ladder, Pittsburgh, spends $33 million, and only has a population of 334,562: ten times as much as Chicago spends, for just one-tenth of the people. New York City spends $200 million, Los Angeles, $165 million. Clearly, here is one obvious opportunity for rather substantial change.'

"According to Jackie Leavy, of the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, which looks out for the meaningful neighborhood use of tax money, Mayor Daley should use some of the money from the lease of the toll road and the underground parking garages to bolster the CTA. 'The city gives only three million dollars a year to the agency and goes begging to Springfield when fiscal crises loom. It is time for the mayor to use more city money to repair and improve the CTA. It is also time to get the universal fare card going to allow transfers between suburban and city transit.'"

There's more, but no discussion of the ghastly prospects on the Red Line, and no mention of the rampant corruption within the Daley administration. What were they thinking? For a realistic assessment, see Greg Hinz's piece at Crain's.

The sizzle may be in Chicago, but the steak is being cooked in Springfield. Our transit, roads, schools, health care, and planning in general are in the hands not of the City Council, but of a state government mired in deficit spending. For that reason, much as I hate the nonconcept "most underrated," I have to say I think the bipartisan Center on Tax and Budget Accountability is the most underrated Chicago policy shop going.

Among those who haven't drunk the anti-tax Kool-Aid, many think 2007 is the year something will finally get done in Springfield -- but not everyone agrees on what that should be. Key points from CTBA's annual fiscal symposium last week:

• CTBA released its own new study (summarized here) documenting Illinois' "structural deficit" -- showing that state taxes are both unfair and inefficient. Illinois' "low, flat income tax places a much greater tax burden on low and middle income taxpayers than affluent taxpayers," and "its sales tax structure fails to track the modern economy." So they fail to produce enough money to balance the budget even with zero growth in programs or expenditures.

• Mike Lawrence, longtime Springfield journalist and a top staffer in Governor Jim Edgar's administration, invoked the example of another Republican governor, Richard Ogilvie (who instituted the state income tax 38 years ago), but added that controlling spending is just as important as adding revenue.

• R. Eden Martin of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club reiterated both halves of that group's proposal: cut costs and raise revenues. In particular, change the public schools' incentive structure by allowing more charter schools. Putting more money into an unchanged monopoly would be "mostly wasted," he said. Many audience members didn't get it and others just disagreed. (Full report here, PDF.)

• You might think taxes for transportation maintenance and improvement would be a slam dunk, but Mary Sue Barrett of the Metropolitan Planning Council says Illinois needs a single transportation planning process to beat down public cynicism and make sure we actually build what's most needed. Such a priority-setting process would fall under the new Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (C-MAP) -- but how would it encompass Moving Beyond Congestion, the current campaign to lobby the General Assembly specifically for more money for the RTA, CTA, Metra, and Pace?

• Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First pushed Gold Collar (PDF), his group's new report on how state business incentives go where they're least needed (well covered by Stephen Franklin in the Tribune). In times of heightened capital mobility, he said, public money should be invested in things unlikely to move away, including a well-educated workforce.

CTBA director Ralph Martire had the last word:  "If Illinois were a separate country, its economy would be the 27th largest in the world, bigger than Ireland, Saudi Arabia, or Greece. And we can't talk about raising taxes?"

In September the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board allowed Advocate Health Care to downsize Bethany Hospital on the west side and turn it into a specialty hospital for long-term care. This past weekend Advocate announced it will seek to open a new hospital in the far-northwestern suburb of Round Lake. For details check out the Blogging Mayor of Round Lake, by mayor and real estate agent Bill Gentes, which includes links to newspaper stories. Crain's gives the most background. Round Lake will issue bonds to buy a key parcel for Advocate.

Advocate -- a chain whose hospitals have roots in Lutheranism, the United Church of Christ, and (at Bethany) the Church of the Brethren -- is the biggest health care provider in Illinois and the second largest private employer of any kind in Chicago. It has long denied that it's abandoning needy city residents for suburban ones. I covered the dispute in the Reader on December 16, 2005, where I wrote of the chain's biggest adversary, the Service Employees International Union:

"The union claims that the forces of health care capitalism are pulling Advocate away from its religious and charitable roots. 'Advocate isn't losing money,' says Joseph Geevarghese, an attorney and director of the union's Hospital Accountability Project. 'They have the resources to do more than just keep the doors open [which at that time was the issue at Bethany]. The incentives are all for hospitals to act like Wal-Mart and IBM.' For example, the chain has to borrow money for its big projects, and if it wants the best interest rates it needs to show healthy returns -- the lenders aren't asking themselves what Jesus would do."

What's the difference between West Garfield Park and western Lake County? Both areas have surpluses of hospital beds. As the map in Crain's makes clear, Round Lake isn't exactly in a hospital desert. And a for-profit chain is already seeking to open a hospital nearby. But the west side has a health care crisis, and Lake County has paying customers. Advocate has plenty of incentives to follow the money; what would it do if union and church people weren't dogging it at every turn?

Voters didn't seem much interested in Republican Judy Baar Topinka's fiscal-responsibility message in the November governor's race (perhaps because her party's president hasn't shown much interest in it either). But the dire consequences of Rod Blagojevich's spend-and-don't-tax regime can't be ignored forever. The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability issued a report on state pension funds November 28. We've been skipping payments again. Full report here (PDF). The gist from Illinois Channel:

"'Illinois public pension liabilities are growing out of control, and the state's failure to pay keeps making them worse,' said Chrissy Mancini, Director of Budget and Policy Analysis for CTBA, a bipartisan fiscal think tank based in Chicago. 'If lawmakers don't act to meet these obligations now, the cost of catching up later will force cuts to education, health care and other essential public services.'

"The report concluded that, because Illinois has the nation's fewest state employees per capita, ranks 42nd in state spending per capita, and offers public pension benefits no richer than the national average, the pension debt can only be solved by adding revenue. The best available option is to fix 'the state's poorly designed tax system [that] doesn't grow with the economy' or produce enough revenue to fund both state services and pension obligations."

You can argue with 'em here or attend CTBA's annual fiscal symposium in Chicago January 17.  John McCarron's Chicago Tribune column is also relevant.

Not everyone gets to choose, of course, but I was surprised to read colleenabean's experience comparing people catching the el to those catching a Metra train:

"Commuters on the CTA walk briskly but they aren't crazed. They move with purpose but not in a maddened state of panic like the Metra commuters do. Everyone is funneling themselves into different doorways with complete disregard for everyone else around. They have a train to catch dammit, they do this everyday, get the fuck out of the way."

Then she had to get into a Metra car:  "The vestibule was packed with standing passengers. Like the robot I am, I shoved my way on. I got many dirty looks. Oops. This isn't CTA where we all tolerate standing uncomfortably close to one another for a few stops. This is a long commute and I broke a rule of suburban commuting. I then noticed that while everyone's jammed in the vestibule, there's no one standing in the isles between the seated passengers."

She was happy to get back on the el, but some commenters report quite a difference between Union Station and other Metra venues, such as Northwestern (excuse me, Ogilvie) and Randolph Street.  How about you?

Writing at Carfree Chicago, Lake Claremont Press announces that it's entertaining proposals from anyone who'd like to write a guide to living car-free in Chicago. Possible topics include "lifestyle nuts and bolts and bonuses, societal/environmental/cost/health rewards for a carfree choice, the transportation gamut (public, car sharing, taxis, walking, cycling), and maybe even the far-out, just for fun (blading, scooters, canoe, boat taxis)."

And don't forget the need to lobby for a transit system that runs often enough, and fast enough, and far enough, to be a decent alternative. Hmmm... maybe you should skip the book and apply for Frank Kruesi's job instead.

For seasonally appropriate inspiration, please click on the adorable gingerbread replica of the el's Francisco station, from Wendy Mc (more at her flickr photostream) via broan33 at LiveJournal.  Gives new meaning to "Brown Line," doncha think? 

Daniel Schulman and James Ridgeway get the 2007 muckraking season off to a great start with a Mother Jones story on the privatization of the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road into which it feeds. As they see it, the city of Chicago and the state of Indiana got taken to the cleaners.

First, they were dealing with Goldman Sachs, which acted as an adviser to Chicago and Indiana -- and as an investor in both deals. "When Goldman Sachs began advising Indiana on selling its toll road, it failed to mention to the state that it was putting together a fund whose sole purpose would be to pick up infrastructure for the best price possible in order to maximize returns for its investors.  Nor did the bank advertise the fact that, even as it was advising Indiana on how to get the best return, its Australian subsidiary's mutual funds were ... becoming de facto investors in the deal."

Second, the deal screwed the public, particularly in Chicago. For instance, if the Skyway's new owners decided to start charging by the time of day, and long-haul truckers responded by taking surface streets instead, the city could face congestion problems it wouldn't be able to control until the lease runs out -- in 2103.

Finally, in the words of Oregon congressman Peter DeFazio, "When you look at the Chicago Skyway, that's even worse.  They are not even reinvesting the proceeds of the sale in transportation.  They're using them for operating costs.  That would be like anybody selling their assets in order to live.  You can't sell your assets very long to put food on the table -- before long you're out of assets."  [SEE UPDATE IN COMMENTS -- THIS IS ONLY PARTLY TRUE.]

Here's a brief and cogent critique (PDF) of both deals, as presented to a House subcommittee May 24 by privatization supporter John Foote of Harvard.

If you look at the entire country, excluding New York City, 4.5 million people work at home, and only 3.7 million take mass transit to work. That's from the Census Bureau's 2005 American Communities Survey, by way of Wendell Cox at the Heartland Institute.  He concludes, "Perhaps it is time to think about paying people to work at home rather than paying transit to not carry people."

Ever since the folks at Heartland went on an antiscience crusade I don't quote them without checking the source.  Sure enough, Cox is fudging -- not by falsifying the numbers but by aggregating them to support his thesis and by ignoring the fact that many people don't have access to mass transit (most people of course drive to work).

Take the Census Bureau's figures for the seven-county Chicago area: In Cook County 68,000 work at home and 388,000 take transit to work. In Du Page County:  21,000 and 28,000. Will County:  10,000 and 14,000. Lake County, Indiana:  4,000 and 6,000. McHenry County:  6,000 and 6,000.

Cox's thesis is borne out in only two counties. In Lake County:  14,000 work at home and 13,000 take transit. In Kane County:  10,000 and 6,000.

Clearly in Chicagoland, except at the fringes, more people take transit to work than work at home. 

Irony alert:  if you were determined to pass a uniform transportation policy for the whole country (minus NYC), then Cox's breakdown of the figures would make sense.  If you were a sincere conservative or libertarian, believing in local choice and adaptation, you'd be more interested in the numbers given above.

New rankings are out at America's Most Literate Cities, 2006, and Chicago's 39th -- up from 46th last year. Seattle and Minneapolis remain 1 and 2, and Portland joined the top ten, knocking out Boston. The cellar dweller is Stockton, California, in 70th place. 

Cities outranking Chicago include Tulsa, Tampa, Virginia Beach, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Louisville. 

The 15 cities that voted most heavily for John Kerry in 2004 have an average rank of #27; the 15 most pro-Bush cities have an average rank of #51.  Duh.

(Standings are based on per capita statistics on booksellers, educational attainment, internet resources, library resources, newspaper circulation, and periodical publications for cities of 250,000 people or more -- all compiled by John W. Miller of Central Connecticut State University.)

A Treehugger headline last weekend: "Powerwash Graffiti shows Chicago is Grey, Not Green," taking snarky note of the city's smoky in-town coal plants (covered in the Reader by Mick Dumke last December and Kari Lydersen in 2003) and the American Lung Association's ongoing campaign against them. Commenters at Treehugger debate whether the Crawford and Fisk plants are that big a deal, and in the new Atlantic James Fallows (paid subscriber only) turns an appalled eye on Beijing, where the smog is so bad he expects 2012 Olympians to fall like ninepins, clutching their chests.

Critics can always contrast Chicago's extravagant claims to ultimate greenness with its reality. But in intercity competition lies hope, whether it's for the Olympics or not.  After all, the U.S. took better care of its poor and minorities back when a Communist enemy stood ready to publicize every failure.

Judge Richard Posner is surprisingly skeptical about the late Milton Friedman's theories. He writes at the Becker-Posner Blog:

"I think his belief in the superior efficiency of free markets to government as a means of resource allocation, though fruitful and largely correct, was embraced by him as an article of faith and not merely as a hypothesis. I think he considered it almost a personal affront that the Scandinavian nations, particularly Sweden, could achieve and maintain very high levels of economic output despite very high rates of taxation, an enormous public sector, and extensive wealth redistribution resulting in much greater economic equality than in the United States. I don't think his analytic apparatus could explain such an anomaly.

"I also think that Friedman, again more as a matter of faith than of science, exaggerated the correlation between economic and political freedom. A country can be highly productive though it has an authoritarian political system, as in China, or democratic and impoverished, as was true for the first half-century or so of India's democracy and remains true to a considerable extent, since India remains extremely poor though it has a large and thriving middle class." 

Read the whole thing, and the intelligent criticism in the comments. The idea that good things go together dies hard, and Posner's a good person to drive a stake through its heart.

Dean Baker has a slightly more barbed personal reminiscence:

"About a decade ago, I stumbled into the wrong session at the American Economics Association Convention. Milton Friedman was . . . pointing out that many measures of considerable economic importance often get little scrutiny. The particular example I remember him discussing was the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to make reasonable efforts to make their places of business accessible to employees and customers with disabilities. I stayed long enough to hear Mr. Friedman argue that this act imposed enormous costs on 'normal people.'"

After the Republican midterm win in 1994 Time's cover showed a gigantic elephant stomping on a donkey. After the Democrats' midterm win in 2006 the magazine ran a chaste Venn diagram and a headline encouraging "centrism."  Media Matters uncovered this bit of conservative bias in the mainstream media, but it was left to Ghost in the Machine to photoshop an improved version of this year's cover.

Which is the greenest city of them all?  Not Chicago.  Boulder, Colorado, voters have enacted a local carbon tax by a 58percent vote, reports Sarah Kraybill Burkhalter at Gristmill.  Of course, out there the mayor stood up to business lobbying.

For the reality-based community, here are some fine red/blue/purple maps of recent elections, by county and congressional district, created by Robert J. Vanderbei.  (Hat tip to Echidne of the Snakes.)

Strange Maps, which is what this blog wants to be when it grows up, resurrects a map of the ten alleged regions of the U.S. from a January 2004 Boston Globe story.  (Chicago's mapped as a non-contiguous outlier of the Great Lakes region, along with Detroit and Pittsburgh.)

2008 is happening, and Lindsay Beyerstein is already begging the Republicans to nominate Rudy Giuliani, that "pro-choice, Catholic, New Yorker," because she thinks that will let the Democrats run as far left as they please:  "Rudy winning the nomination in '08 would be the single biggest step towards social democracy in the US in our lifetimes."

From a San Francisco flea market comes a little book of sketches of Chicago life from more than 90 years ago.  Thanks to Mel Kadel and Travis Millard, you can see them all here and wonder who produced these vivid little cartoons.

Then you can read through the comments and watch the hivemind at work, learning why someone would bind up a book with only the first few pages actually printed (leaving great sketching space), and that the sketcher may have been Andy Hettinger, an early Chicago animator who died young. Can anyone else continue the detective work?

(Hat tip to Whet and Boing Boing.) 

Have you ever wished that you were at Wrigley Field on October 8 and 9, 1929, when the Cubs lost the first two games of the World Series to the Philadelphia Athletics? Me neither, but someone does, and that someone should get right over to YouTube for six and a half minutes of silent film. (I was more interested in the fans than the game: What's up with all those hats? And where are the women?)

"It is hard not to wonder what the last several years would have been like if President Bush and the Republican Party had, as winners, demonstrated the same kind of generosity and inclusiveness shown by Santorum and the White House as losers." -- Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago. Read the whole thing -- it's not long, and don't forget the commenters, many of whom think Sunstein is just too nice.

"AFV893342: Man on bike jumps makeshift ramp, crashes into tree. However, humor of footage compromised by subsequent close-up of compound fracture of humerus and squeals of horrific pain." More alleged rejects from "America's Funniest Home Videos" at McSweeney's. (Hat tip to 3 Quarks Daily.)

I am "probably . . . from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri)" according to my answers to the What American Accent Do You Have? quiz. Take it if you like to ponder whether the first syllable of "horrible" rhymes with "whore." (Hat tip to Abstract Nonsense.)

WorldChanging -- the blog, Web site, and book based on the premise that "real solutions already exist for building the future we want. It's just a matter of grabbing hold and getting moving" -- will have team members flogging their book and more at the Shedd Aquarium Sunday, November 12, at 6:30 PM. The event is subtitled "a user's guide for the 21st century." (And yes, some commenters are already complaining that their chosen venue "imprisons fish.")

RSVP to worldchangingchi@gmail.com. Details here.

First post on their new Chicago blog, in which Greg Ehrendreich of the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance notes the recent appearance of the city's Household Chemicals & Electronics Recycling Center, is here (though it looks like there may still be some formatting issues). The possibility that they may still be looking for knowledgeable local bloggers is here.

Previous mentions on this blog here and here.

These days we find the Indiana Dunes beautiful, refreshing, and maybe even "the earthly locus of a vision incorporating peace, oneness with nature, and brotherhood," as historians J. Ronald and Joan Gibb Engel put it.  But less than a century ago many saw them as sandy wastes unfit for anything except  steel mills. Artist and conservationist Frank Dudley (1868-1957), who painted landscapes of dunes almost exclusively for four decades, is now joining the roster of those, including Jens Jensen, who changed things around.

More than 200 of Dudley's works are on display through November 30 at the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University, and the exhibition's catalog is now a lavishly illustrated large-format book, The Indiana Dunes Revealed: The Art of Frank V. Dudley. (The book includes a biography of Dudley by the Illinois Institute of Technology's James R. Dabbert; a condensed version with images appeared in the American Art Review (PDF) last summer.)

Dudley's story is replete with paradoxes. Just as the creation of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore 40 years ago was sparked by Illinois U.S. Senator Paul Douglas, this book is being published by the University of Illinois.  Dudley's conservationism is now seen as a progressive cause. But from today's standpoint he fails to be a consistently progressive prophet: he stubbornly opposed modern art and idealized generic Indians in private and public performances. The outdoor "masques" and "pageants" that inspired him now seem overdone.

Much as Abraham Lincoln was an ambitious lawyer and canny politician as well as the savior of the union, Dudley was both an ardent lover of the dunes and an artist who found them an ideal niche in which to earn a living.  Writes Chicago art historian Wendy Greenhouse:

"For artists of Dudley's generation . . . the rise of both landscape painting and Impressionism were closely tied to the emergence of familiar, Midwestern subjects," and the realization that "their own home landscape -- authentic if humble -- could be the vehicle for genuine artistic expression. . . . The same qualities, in turn, promised to appeal to local buyers. . . . As modernism made increasing inroads on the Chicago art scene in the early 1920s, Dudley found unfailing support among the aesthetically conservative, civic-minded Chicagoans represented by such groups."

Near the end of his life Dudley was an advisor to the new Save the Dunes Council, which continues to watch over the "sacred sands."

One thing nonprofit groups can learn from business, according to Chicago nonprofit veteran Paul Botts over at dot-org: Set priorities and mean it. No more strategic plans that declare "ten top priorities (half of which begin 'Address issues of...')."

You totally owe it to yourself to check out these monster tricycles. (Hat tip to Mental Floss.)

Gabe at Buffalo Rising (that's the Buffalo in New York) idolizes Chicago neighborhood architecture, sort of: "The architecture itself of these new-builds is usually rather bland and uninspiring -- typically consisting half-baked historic copycat styles. But the real success is in the proportions, site planning, and density of these new structures." (Hat tip to Planetizen.)

The ever-vigilant University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is on to the horror of equine obesity.

Never be rude. "One year at a conference, I was at a social-professional event, and asked the organizer if there was anything to drink besides beer. He smirked and said to me 'If you don't like beer, you should get out of here,' then turned his back. When he arrived in my office a few weeks later as a candidate for a faculty position (I was on the search committee), he was very uncomfortable talking to me." (More tales of terror at Science + Professor + Woman = Me.)

The enterprising Greg Hinz of Crain's Chicago Business is already on the next election, getting strong hints from Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez that they'll be able to accomplish more in the new Democratic House than trying to take down Boss II.

Jackson is to announce his actual decision Thursday noon.

Running for public office has been "the most humbling experience of my life," writes Debra Shore, candidate for  commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, in a recent e-mail.  (Chris Hayes' profile of Shore ran in the Reader October 28, 2005.)

"I was passing out campaign literature at the Glenview Metra station . . . I was reminded of the many mornings I spent in January, February, and March handing out literature and introducing myself to people at train stations prior to the primary. Sometimes I was so cold that I literally could no longer say my name. . . .

"I was also reminded of Dumpster diving -- the effort by candidates to retrieve perfectly good (and costly) campaign lit that was tossed, mere seconds after being handed out, into the nearest garbage can or el platform.  Once people board the train, you grab whatever lit lies on the top of the trash pile. At least the frugal candidates do."

Republican spinner Dan Curry speaks bipartisan truth at Reverse Spin: "If Rod pulls off a victory . . . it will mean Illinois has selected the following two governors: George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, who both padded their campaign treasury with ill-gotten funds. Rejected along the way were four people who raised far less cash but according to the rules: Glenn Poshard, Paul Vallas, Jim Ryan and Topinka."

Michael McDonald of the Brookings Institution takes down five myths about voter turnout. He says apathy isn't on the rise, and negative commercials haven't caused it. (Hat tip to Rich Miller.)

What makes you think Bush is any better at planning for unpleasant contingencies in Iraq now than he was in 2003?  Billmon at Whiskey Bar notices an ominous parallel from 1942.

"Since announcing his candidacy for the Illinois Senate seat, Obama has raised the astonishing sum of nearly $21 million and has built close relationships with a number of traditional fat-cat donors." Ken Silverstein of Harper's magazine responds to the senator's response to his article (which you'll have to read on paper). Closer to home, why on earth does Obama embrace the Crown Prince of Cook County, when Boss Daley can't even stick up for John Kerry? Could it be that was just the easy way out?

 
Reader, May 26:  "[Hastert challenger John Laesch is] also aware that he can help his fellow candidates win or lose: a serious challenge might limit Hastert’s ability to help Republicans elsewhere." Tribune, November 4:  "Hastert homes in on his own district. . . . He's running an ad on cable television, an unusual move for a 20-year incumbent who has won almost every race by a margin of greater than 2-to-1."

There are so many ways to go off-message, especially if the intended victims of your message can deliver it cheaply. Check out this story from Fort Wayne about a Republican congressman siccing the state attorney general on Republican Party calls made in his cause. Speaking in heavily accented voices, the callers deliver an anti-immigration message. (Hat tip to Governing.com: 13th floor.)

Sam Smith at Undernews asks the unaskable: why is the military sacred? He prefers the teachings of Jesus Christ and midwestern socialist Eugene Debs, who said, "I would no more teach children military training than I would teach them arson, robbery, or assassination."

George Schmidt may be a ranter, but you would be too if you knew what he knows: "Problems are festering or growing at every general high school on the west and south sides right now. And the cause of the increase in those problems, this year and for the last three school years, has been the school-closing and 'Renaissance' policies of CPS." All the details are at the District 299 Chicago Public Schools Blog.

"Give everyone a personal carbon ration. If you run out, buy it from someone else," says Treehugger, summarizing the strong global-warming medicine prescribed by George Monbiot the UK Guardian.

Alon Levy of Abstract Nonsense tees off on libertarians who cling to a 60-year-old scripture: "When Hayek said in The Road to Serfdom that the growth of government spending was a threat to freedom, he had an excuse: at that time there was no evidence to the contrary."

Dudes, I swear he means it as a compliment!  Bill McKibben on the new WorldChanging book: "Their book, a compilation of their work over the last few years, is nothing less than The Whole Earth Catalog, that hippie bible, retooled for the iPod generation."

Orac at Respectful Insolence calls the Chicago Tribune's Sunday story on alternative medicine full of a "little too much credulity." For one thing, personal testimonials, "with few exceptions, do not constitute useful data regarding the efficacy of a therapy."

"The history of genetically modified foods doesn't feature a history of testing appropriate to their innovative character." That's Vivian Weil, longtime head of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She and University of Chicago geneticist Jocelyn Malamy did a thorough job of setting the table at the Illinois Humanities Council's genetics program last Saturday, identifying and distinguishing the issues around genetically modified foods, but that didn't leave the audience much time to eat. (IHC has an associated blog with some discussion.)

Malamy's key point is that not all GM plants pose the same questions. "Round-Up Ready" transgenic plants are resistant to herbicide, so that farmers can control weeds by spraying more and cultivating less. They pose questions of environmental damage from added chemical use. "Bt" transgenic plants have a bacterial gene inserted that makes them toxic to European corn borers; the issue is whether they might poison desirable insects or cause Bt-resistant borers to evolve over time.

Malamy also ran down questions (and her answers) that apply to both current GM plants and future ones:

Is the process of adding or altering genes harmful to consumers?  (No.)

Could specific transgenes be toxic?  (Maybe.)

Can transgenic pollen spread to other crops or wild relatives?  (Yes.)

Could specific transgenic plants be detrimental to the environment?  (Potentially.)

Other food issues don't apply specifically to GM crops but are problems with industrial farming in general: the use of pesticides, growing monocultures of the same crop, hybrid seeds that farmers can't save, and agribusinesses' aggressive enforcement of their patent claims.

Both GM plants and GM foods should be tested for safety, said Malamy. "I would advocate activism to make sure agencies are in place" to do this job properly, she added.

The panelists even had a little philosophical dust-up about how to put GM in context. Moderator Bruce Kraig of Roosevelt University and the Culinary Historians of Chicago began the day by saying, "Genetic manipulation began millennia ago," implying that GM foods are not significantly different from strains of cattle selectively bred over generations for milk or beef production. Malamy qualified this, saying, "There are limits to breeding. You can't breed for resistance to the corn borer, because no such trait exists in the plant to start with. But other plants have it." And Weil was equally hesitant: "This is an innovation in breeding. There is a break -- now we have the ability to bring genes from sources not previously available."

In a sentence: genetic modification isn't the end of the world, but it's definitely not business as usual, and so far the government hasn't regulated it well.

Roughly speaking, there is about half as much crime now in the U.S. and across Chicago as there was in 1991. How come?

Northwestern political scientist Wesley G. Skogan, best known for his studies of community policing in Chicago, calls this "one of the most significant social facts of the end of the 20th century," (PDF) and "one of the least understood." In plain language, more than 3,000 people are walking around today in Chicago who would have been murdered if the crime rate had stayed where it was 15 years ago.

Skogan is pretty sure it's not because there are fewer young people (there aren't), and it's not due to economic boom times (at least in Chicago).

Is it that we're putting more people in jail? Then why did crime continue to drop after 1999, even as rates of imprisonment fell?

Has gun control made a difference? But the number of crimes committed without guns is down too.

Skogan speculates that a decline this long and this large is probably due to more than one factor. Although data are hard to find, he suspects that incarceration of hard-core offenders in the early 1990s, community policing in the late 1990s, and smarter policing tactics since then may be the important ones.

Chicago's number one green-building architect isn't satisfied, according to a recent Grist magazine profile. Doug Farr's firm has produced more buildings that earned the platinum (highest) rating on the LEED green-building standard than any other architectural firm. (The number is two.) But a green building, after all, can be plunked down anywhere in a distinctly non-green way.

So Farr has been working on LEED-ND standards for entire neighborhoods. "There is so much effort that goes into designing and building this one small thing, this single green building," he tells Charles Shaw (who edits Chicago's edition of Conscious Choice, and was the subject of Mike Miner's Reader column for October 20). "The same amount of effort goes into planning two square miles of regular neighborhood, and that will serve us for the next 200 years. [The focus on individual buildings] just doesn't make any sense."

The firm's Web site briefly summarizes and maps (PDF) its work on the recent Chicago zoning reform, pushing "continuous streeetwalls [along sidewalks], high levels of window transparency, and entrances to shops at sidewalks. Any associated parking is to be located behind buildings, and auto-oriented uses, such as drive-thrus, will be prohibited on designated 'P Streets'" -- in other words, drawing a line against creeping suburbanism.

Farr's book -- you knew there was a book -- will be called Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature. There is already a shelf full of similar titles, but we can hope this one will be more specific.

No matter how good it is, though, it's really just a holding action. Farr knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men and women. No book and no set of standards will get very far as long as we can still afford not to go green. "There is no measure of shame or guilt that will stop people from unsustainable practices, only price will." When the prices go up, he aims to be ready.