Tuesday, July 31, 2012

American Violence and Southern Culture (Chicago Mag)

"Part of Lemann's thesis, not that he ignores the effects of segregation and concentrated poverty, is that the divide between city and backcountry was also brought north: "Every aspect of the underclass culture in the ghettos is directly traceable to roots in the South -- and not the South of slavery but the South of a generation ago."

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Is Detroit Becoming Michigan's Next Suburb?  (The Detroit News)

"The native Detroiters, tired of the struggle and lack of change, see problems, while the new Detroiters — armed with energy and excitement — see possibilities."
Chicago Regional Unity? Milwaukee Takes The Lead (Richard Longworth)

"Milwaukee already has set itself up as the freshwater capital of the world with its Water Council and the new Freshwater School at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Chicago's City Hall and other leaders are just beginning to take notice: water companies in the city have formed a trade group called Blue Tech Alliance. The job now is to get these players around the same table, to enable the two cities to leverage their water-based assets to create a global freshwater center that could be an investment magnet in an increasingly arid world."

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Chicago Creating more Jobs than Most U.S. Cities (NBC)

"Right now there are 28,000 more people with jobs in Chicago compared to a year ago, and the number of workers looking for a job dropped by almost 20,000.

Houston was the only U.S. city that created more jobs than Chicago."
Visionary Proposals of the Chicago River's South Branch (Chicago Journal)

"Organized by Chicago-based Skidmore Owings & Merrill and the Friends of the Chicago River (the museum’s parent organization), the exhibit is a culmination a semester-long project by a group of Harvard University architecture and urban planning graduate students."
Batman and Gotham (Atlantic Cities)

Image Credit

Friday, July 13, 2012

Drought, Ethanol & Shrinking Airports (Richard Longworth)

It's heresy to say this in the corn-growing areas of the Midwest, but ethanol is a boondoggle. Its long-term viability depends on continued high and stable prices for two of the planet's most volatile commodities, corn and oil.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Chicago Increasing Pedestrian Space with Mini "Parklets" (Architects Newspaper)

"QCDC is a Bronzeville-based non-profit that is partnering with the city to pilot a portion of Make Way for People known as People Spots. People Spots essentially expand sidewalk seating onto portions of the street sometimes referred to as "parklets."
Struggling in the Suburbs (NY Times)

"The suburbs were not designed for the poor. And even now, local governments are not equipped to see, much less answer, a lot of their needs."
New Detroit Farm Plan Taking Root (Wall Street Journal)

"Detroit has more than 200,000 vacant parcels—almost half of them residential plots—that generate no significant tax revenue and would cost more to maintain than the city can afford. Finding new uses for this land has become one of the most pressing challenges for a city that lost a quarter of its population in the past decade."