The story of the shuttered Washington Mutual branch at 1364 E. 53rd Street is not unique. It was repeated all over the city of Chicago and nationwide during the five year boom in bank-branch expansion. The boom saw corner cafes, fashion boutiques,...

Since we posted on the prospect of Hyde Park's Impending Health Care Desert in June 2008, the health care situation has evolved considerably. It is now safe to say that, as a result of the subprime blowout, consequent credit crisis, and related global recession, the recently announced budget...

People who fantasize about Chicago as a Presidential City worthy of the global spotlight might interpret the tons of furniture moved to curbs after every snowfall as...

Parking is the gender-bender of urban policy issues. It has the capacity to make free-market Republicans slam their fist on the table in defense of subsidized parking anywhere and anytime, while making social democratic types of a green coloration passionate at the prospect of allowing market-clearing prices for curb parking.

Or, When The World Comes to Hyde Park ( ... and Then Goes Downtown For Dinner)

The week or so before and after the general election were, for this blogger, framed by the following encounters, in the order of their increasingly surreal occurrence:

1) A conversation with two Jehovah's Witnesses,...

The U of C's Milton Friedman Institute and the Subprime Crisis

An ongoing faculty squabble over a planned, $100 million Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago now has the enormous subprime blowup for a backdrop, and so far it's not a terribly flattering one.

One can't...

Short answer: Half the story.

Longer answer: The Chicago Tribune's zoning series missed the half of the story that corresponds to the half of the city known as the South Side.

To understand how this is so, all you have to do is to compare two photographs from different...

A bar mitzvah ban? For what reason should you want to ban bar mitzvahs?

Ask the guy who showed up at the August 5th community meeting on the planned redevelopment of Hyde Park's Doctors Hospital. Among the many quixotic neighborhood objections to...