Last month I bemoaned Chicago's future. Now, for the first time in 11 years, I work in urban planning again. And I just held Chicago history in my hands. Read More
Ever use a GPS-enabled Android phone to circumnavigate both of Madison, Wisconsin's major lakes searching for public lakefront access? We did. Mostly in vain. Read More
The Lincoln Park Zoo has rehabbed the park's South Pond into a spiffy new Nature Boardwalk. But now that the pond's former shabbiness is gone, so are the paddle boats that plied its waters for more then a century. It's a piece of the rehab project zoo planners haven't mentioned much in the past two years. Read More
This summer, downtown Chicago has been handed over to the Transformers 3 movie shoot--to film scenes glorifying Loop devastation and the the deaths of rank-and-file Chicagoans. As citywide media goes ga-ga for gargantuan robots, I'm wondering whether $20 million is the going rate for ceding civic pride? Read More
One of the things I shouted loudest when I first began Chicago Carless four-and-a-half years ago no longer applies. Back in mid-2005, I still carried around my New-York-native anti-surburban bias. On recent reflection, it's time to let the suburbs have their due. At least in Chicago. Read More
There are bad branding strategies. There are Macy's-mothballs-Marshall-Field awful branding strategies. And then there's Willis Group's hubris- and hare-brained idea to rename the Sears Tower. What do you get when you glue a new name on an old icon whose existing monicker has worldwide recognition? Judging by local blog discussion, a good laugh--and lots of people who say they just won't bother to say the word W*****. Read More
In May, I threw down the charge for local bloggers to set aside starchitect fandom in their reviews of Renzo Piano's new Art Institute of Chicago Modern Wing. This week, Aaron Renn, author of the widely noted urban-analysis blog, The Urbanophile, took up the challenge. A fan of the Modern Wing's exterior, in an epic post, Renn considers the elevated Nichols Bridgeway and Monroe streetscape, below, in the same copious detail for which his blog has become known in national Read More
People say the strangest things to me in downtown Chicago. This past weekend was a trifecta. Sunday afternoon I ran into Marina City's own Vincent Falk, aka the colorful, tour-boat-waving Riverace (rhymes with Liberace), standing together with Marina City Online scribe Steve Dahlman mid-span on the State Street Bridge. Read More
Imagine my surprise this past Friday when I took one of my urban hikes through my downtown Chicago neighborhood and walked right into what may be the most unnecessarily dangerous pedestrian crossing in town. Read More
It may be the biggest heist in Chicago history, folks, and it's right under our noses. Or our feet, anyway. One look at this year's new Chicago Transit Authority map uncovers the dastardly deed: someone has stolen the Washington/State Red Line station. Read More