Date archive for August, 2009
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Urbanophile Blog Says Chicagoans Don’t Want Better Transit
Local urban-affairs blogger Aaron Renn says there’s a very good reason Chicago doesn’t have a world-class transit system: it doesn’t want one. Recently on his The Urbanophile blog, Renn began a multi-part series examining why Chicago never seems to be able to get its act together to plan, build, and maintain innovative public-transit infrastructure the likes of which other world cities have enjoyed for years. Even though Chicagoans love to complain at length about the CTA, could it be we actually think the agency is doing a good-enough job?
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Analyzing Helen Shiller’s Response to the Uptown Riot Controversy
Yesterday afternoon, Alderman Helen Shiller posted a lengthy response on the 46th Ward website regarding the widely viewed August 13th Uptown riot video and the firestorm of controversy surrounding it. Given the gravity of the situation for Uptown residents, it’s a response worthy of a line-by-line analysis by a communications strategist. Being one, myself (how useful is that?), that’s exactly what I’ve done. Read on to learn why I think Shiller’s response doesn’t fit the crime.
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Windy City Housing Porn: YoChicago vs. Rent or Buy
Two competing local blogs offer all the housing porn you could ever want to to help you make your next Windy City real estate decision. From floorplans to photo spreads to video walkthroughs, let’s look at two hotly competitive real estate sites: Joe Zekas’s YoChicago; and Maureen Wilkey’s Rent or Buy? ChicagoNow blog.
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Where’d Chicago Go?: Skyscraper Roofdeck Fog Bank
It’s one thing to watch the Sears Tower disappear into the murky whiteness from below. It’s quite another to stand atop one of Marina City’s twin, 61st-floor open-air roofdecks and try and make out the Chicago Loop from inside an aerial fog bank, itself.
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…And There Was Pork: Sky Full of Bacon
Chicago’s best multimedia food blog is Michael Gebert’s Sky Full of Bacon and I’m late to the party in saying so. His long-form video podcasts and essays tell the interesting stories behind the food that hits Chicago tables–and the people committed to getting it there. Foodies with attention spans will go away hungry for more.
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Cat and a Drop Dead Proof
When Overly Frank adopted olderly Ryza from PAWS Chicago earlier this month, the cuddly interaction between Oklahoma expat and 11-year-old feline made me realize how much I’d been taking my own lifelong companion for granted. His life, that is.
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Why the EveryBlock Sale Matters: Chicago Foundations Pass the Buck on Sustainability
As widely reported this week, Chicago-based hyperlocal newsfeed aggregator EveryBlock.com was bought out by MSNBC for an undisclosed sum likely in the millions. At a time when Windy City foundations are posturing to be the nonprofit saviors of online local news, the surprise sale may point to a different future for popular sites. Is there money to be made in the online local news sphere after all?
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Beyond the Pedway: Video Interviews with Chicago Creatives
Each week on his Beyond the Pedway video blog, freelence web developer Tim Jahn interviews the leaders of creative Chicago companies to learn what makes them tick–and why they call the Windy City home. A member of the social media team of The Chicago Convergence, a grassroots collaborative of creative professionals using new media to network and distribute their work, Jahn created Beyond the Pedway blog to more deeply explore the universe of interesting, online-aware companies in Chicago.
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Pepsi Challenged
‘I was in a bilevel Burger King, with the dining room squeezed in downstairs from the order counter. I ordered something I don’t remember and a large Pepsi. I really don’t know what happened. A tremor? A foot slip? But there I was walking downstairs watching my soda tumble end over end in slow motion in front of me.’
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Is Teresa Puente’s Opinion of Rick Bayless “Racist”?
Is ChicagoNow blogger Teresa Puente a racist for saying that Rick Bayless is stealing the spotlight from native Mexican chefs in the United States? Some say yes–including the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Vettel.
