At Emanuel budget forum, TIF question raises roof
The questions Wednesday night ranged from potholes to bus fares, from school-day hours to traffic-aide layoffs. But nothing roused the crowd like the city’s 165 tax-increment-financing districts, which...
View ArticleRustbelt city wants immigrants, skilled or not
Lifelong Dayton resident Monica Schultz, 36, brings me to the East End block where she grew up. “This whole street was full of families,” she says. “Kids were running around playing, all within my age...
View ArticleNavistar layoffs add to doubts about incentives
Sears Holdings Corp. and Chicago’s financial exchanges have quit threatening to pull up stakes now that Illinois has enacted tax breaks for them. But it remains unclear whether state incentives to big...
View ArticleHow the U.S. lost South America
While the U.S. economy has struggled in the last decade, South America's has thrived. And as the U.S. deals with near record poverty, South American countries are ramping up social spending and...
View ArticleAlderman accuses bank of ‘redlining’
An alderman on Chicago’s struggling West Side is steamed about a plan by Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp to close a full-service branch in her neighborhood.Ald. Emma Mitts (37th Ward) said the company’s...
View ArticleWhich comes first? Closed schools or blighted neighborhoods?
The above Google Street View map of Chicago's Englewood community shows Woods Academy on the left. It was identified as a potential CPS closure last week. Many of the surrounding properties on Racine...
View ArticleWhy are Chicago’s sidewalk cafes all on the North Side? Part 2
With warm weather securely in hand, Chicagoans are dining out in droves. We don’t know exactly where all this sun-drenched dining is taking place, but we can make a solid case that nearly all of the...
View ArticleUntangling TIFs
Many Chicagoans have heard the word TIF, but few people understand how they work, and they may even have trouble untangling all the threads related to this complicated economic development tool.TIF...
View ArticleSmooth growth: A challenge to traditional urban redevelopment
On the corner of 57th and Lafayette, an old green house displays a certain charm, despite the fact that the porch sags, and wildflowers and tall grass fill the yard. The surrounding blocks have wide...
View ArticleRents may be going up, but residents say they're not going anywhere
There’s a fight brewing in Albany Park over who gets to live there.Arturo Chavez would like to stay in the North Side neighborhood, where he’s lived for roughly three years — but that seems...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....