Chicago

January 1979 saw one of the worst blizzards in city history hit Chicago, dumping 20 inches of snow, closing O'Hare airport for 46 hours, and paralyzing traffic in the city for days. Despite the record snowfall, the city's ineffectual response was widely credited for the defeat of Mayor Michael Bilandic in his re-election bid, leading to Jane Bryne becoming the city's first female mayor.

In January 1978, a similar blizzard had struck the city of Indianapolis, also burying the city in a record 20 inches of snow. Mayor Bill Hudnut stayed awake nearly two days straight, coordinating the response and frequently updating the city on the snow fighting efforts through numerous media appearances.  read more »

What could prove to be the worst economic decline since 1929 may also have the unintended consequence of creating a booming real estate market for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area over the next few years. Ironically this has been brought on not, as one might expect, by Democrats – traditionally the party of Washington – but by the often fervently anti-DC Republicans.  read more »

President-Elect Obama has promised us a new day but early signals show that if change is on the way, it might follow the course most expect. Just look at his choice of Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. It appears Mr. Obama has picked a very partisan Democrat from Chicago's Democratic Machine. Rahm Emanuel's closeness to Mayor Daley and William Daley should raise eyebrows.  read more »

With Barack Obama possibly becoming the next President, it’s time to look at the Senator’s hometown. The Senator may have talked a great deal about change as a candidate, but to a large extent he has worked closely with what may be one of the most corrupt political cultures in America.  read more »

Just months ago, urban revivalists could see the rosy dawn of a new era for America's cities. With rising gas prices and soaring foreclosures hitting the long-despised hinterland, urban boosters and their media claque were proclaiming suburbia home to, as the Atlantic put it, "the next slums." Time magazine, the Financial Times, CNN and, of course, The New York Times all embraced the notion of a new urban epoch.

Yet in one of those ironies that markets play on hypesters, the mortgage crisis is now puncturing the urbanists' bubble. The mortgage meltdown that first singed the suburbs and exurbs, after all, was largely financed by Wall Street, the hedge funds, the investment banks, insurers and the rest of the highly city-centric top of the paper food chain.  read more »

From the beginning of the mortgage crisis New York and other financial centers have acted as if they were immune to the suffering in the rest of country. As suburbs, exurbs and hard-scrabble out of the way urban neighborhoods suffered with foreclosures and endured predictions of their demise, the cognitive elites in places like Manhattan felt confident about their own prospects, property values and jobs. So what if the rubes in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tampa and Riverside all teetered on the brink?  read more »

Recently, Chicago-based lobbyist and election attorney Dan Johnson-Weinberger wrote a rather positive blog entry for The Huffington Post. The subject matter was how great a place Chicago is. Here’s a quote:

Proudly multi-racial, ruthlessly pragmatic, open to hustling newcomers and somewhat audacious, Chicago's unique culture is ascendant.  read more »

In Chicago’s recent history, when you think of beers, Jesse Jackson and his sons Yusaf and Jonathan come to mind. Yusaf and Jonathan Jackson were fortunate enough to receive a coveted Anheuser-Busch distributorship on the north side of Chicago. Just the other day, MillerCoors announced it would move its corporate headquarters to downtown Chicago by the summer or fall of 2009. The cost was high.  read more »

After decades of living in the shadows not only of New York, but such emergent regions as Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas, Chicago suddenly seems to be on a roll. It may be very close to placing its “favorite son” – Senator Barack Obama – as our next President, with all the enormous increase in prestige and patronage that entails. It could win the 2016 Olympics.  read more »

Recently, Crain’s Chicago Business reported on Chicago winning an award from Fast Company magazine. “Chicago stood out in our reporting for its creativity and vitality,” Editor and Managing Director Bob Safian said at a press conference here. “Chicago offers something distinctive.”  read more »