Shit like this reinforces my belief that in order to stop hemorrhaging people, Chicago and the state have to play both the national and international game of attracting/heavily courting businesses, institutions, NGOs, entertainment industry funders to setup shop here in order to make the state that people NEED to be in, not just because they want to be here. We don't have the weather, nor the geography, nor (currently) the financial health to attract new residents and keep current residents in the state, so there has to be greater reliance on a 'need-to-be in Illinois/Chicago' factor. People need to be in NYC for the financial, media, fashion sectors as well as the UN. Chicago and Illinois will keep falling further and further behind and losing more people if certain attitudes don't change. There's a 'contentment' factor that I see everywhere I turn, where 'there is enough' and no need to go beyond what we currently have, in every aspect of life here, that I think is self-damaging because I really believe that it prevents people, communities, institutions and even entire cities from being ambitious.
It's not possible to be attractive when there is a self-inflicted limit to the perception of what can be possible. We need more housing, we need more museums, we need more highrises, we need to increase tech, banking, fashion, media, science and social and civic things based in Chicago. There needs to be more of everything otherwise the engines of growth stall, which is exactly what is already happening.

And because I'm already in a salty mood, if you have a state sponsored pension from Illinois and you choose to move out of state, you should be cut off, because that OTHER state is now benefiting from that person's residency; take the money and run is bullshit.

Its all about the guaranteed pensions after 20 years. We need a new constitutional amendment to revise the pension laws. Employees need to contribute more while working to their pension and medical, they need to work longer, like 30 years before full pensions. We need to outlaw the last year bumps especially in education, where teachers and admins get 50K bumps in pay for the final year and then retire at that rate. And we need an excise tax for pensioners that take their pension out of state.:hell::hell:

Yes, thank you, especially the last part, said more accurately than anything my dumb brain could muster.

Unfortunately, Federal law prohibits an excise tax for people that move out of state. It would take an act of congress to change that.

On Jan. 10, 1996, Congress enacted the Pension Source Tax Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-94). This law specifically stipulates that, "No State may impose an income tax on any retirement income of an individual who is not a resident or domiciliary of such State." While the Source Tax law still allows individual states to define residency on their own terms, it prohibits any state from taxing non-residents for pensions earned within the state. If you earn a pension in Vermont, for instance, then retire to New York, Vermont may not tax your pension income.

Second round of thoughts after moving here(all transportation related):

1. Holy crap, people really line up and turn left on red lights. I am used to one car doing this back in Norfolk, but I have seen up to FOUR do it here in Chicago. Drivers are really aggressive, but I like it so far.

2. The stories of homeless people on the Blue line have proven true for me. Going to and from the airport I had no issues. However, last week there was a homeless dude taking 4 seats sleeping during rush hour(I barely had room to get on the train) and then when I was heading home(still around rush hour) there was a dude passed out on two seats but had a trash bag in the floor partially blocking the way and he also had two milk jugs with a mystery fluid splashing around. The half of the train where he wasn't at, full. The half he was in, empty. I sat next to him to get a seat but quickly realized why no one was sitting over there, it stunk so bad. I had two 'country boy' instincts. One, I wanted to tell the first dude to get up because the train was packed and its so damn rude to take up all the seats. The second dude, I wanted to wake him up and tell him to take his jugs and trash off the train, to be civilized. But the second part of me(my better side) insisted that this was messed up. I felt bad that these dudes were so comfortable sleeping on a full train and this might be the only place to go to stay warm and get some sleep. In any case, I will need some time to get used to those scenes, and I am uncomfortable at this point even saying I will get used to the nuisance aspect of it or the human aspect of those scenes.

3. Red line. All the crime issues from the news seem to be from the Red line, at a rate I wasn't expecting. Is there a reason for this? I mean, I know its 24/7 but at the same time a lot of the crime that makes the news is during normal business hours or early in the evening.

4. My school gives out free Ventra cards. I have been getting around town for free and exploring a lot. The trains and buses have been really easy to use and quite reliable. Biking has been fun and driving to a few choice places(target near my house, home depot etc) has been a breeze. Point? Transportation has been incredibly easy since I've moved here.

It's pretty interesting that the mid-1990s recession hit tower building even harder than the financial crisis of 2008, in New York and Chicago.

We don't have our own transit police here in Chicago (well I guess metra does), unlike in New York. The CPD has "other" priorities which means they likely won't help you out on public transit. Also, many of the individuals committing those crimes were below the age of 18, meaning it is incredibly difficult to for them to receive any consequences (because of the way Kim Foxx handles things here). I'd love to hear other peoples opinions here but for me, the real reason the red line has more crime than other lines is because it traverses the entire city. It goes north to south across various spectrums of wealth which means you may have people with very little riding on it as well as people with a lot more. You could say the same about the blue line, and to an extent the green line as well. Also, the blue and red lines have subways which seem to be a favorite spot of violent crimes. I think that the people committing these crimes know they won't get punished for them and that they likely won't even be caught because of the problems with the CPD. This could all be fixed if we had our own transit police. In the meantime, I would just use common sense and you should be fine. Keep your phone on you while riding, don't take it out or flaunt it around. Try not to wear any valuables (nice watch, coat, etc.). Just keep to yourself and if anything ever happens (you get robbed), give them what you have on you and don't try to fight. Always file a police report, but 99% of the time nothing will happen. You should be fine if you follow those rules and just use common sense.

Yes, drivers here are VERY aggressive, to the point of being downright stupid. Makes one wonder how in the hell they got their freaking driver's licenses!

Blue Line homeless issue. Absolutely true, and I deal with it 5 days a week from Belmont down to Clinton and back, which is my daily commute. Weekends seem to be the worst, but even during rush hours it can be bad. I don't mind it so much during off hours, given the trains aren't packed, but during rush hours it's a real issue!

Aaron (Glowrock)

The usual rule of thumb is two cars after the red, but during rush hours more people will try to squeeze into the turns. CDOT doesn't like installing protected left turn phases, so Chicagoans have adapted. When you do see protected left turns, it's usually on a state road or where they have been required for large redevelopment projects (shopping centers, highrises, etc).

Yeah the Red Line runs from the poorest neighborhoods to the wealthiest, not surprising that it would be a site for conflict and crime. Also, I've heard that the drug markets in Rogers Park are supplied by larger gangs on the South Side and they use individuals to ferry the drugs, guns, etc via the train. It's hard to police CTA trains without inconveniencing honest commuters, so police are kind of in a bind at stopping this problem. Not to mention, the cops are always hesitant to arrest people when there are hundreds of other train riders nearby who might film/videotape them.

One other thing (that you probably already know), if you have renter's insurance, it will usually cover your property even if it's taken away from your home. This will usually require you to file a police claim. Although the deductible may make it not worth it (my wife had her wallet pickpocketed at a restaurant once... it was not worth filing an insurance claim because there was no cash, just credit cards that were quickly canceled).

This is largely incorrect. It's true that the CTA doesn't have it's own police department, but the CPD has a dedicated transit detail. You even see CPD cars marked as such.

This happened sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, as one way of getting administrative/operation expenses off the books at the CTA, and as a back-door way for the City to subsidize the CTA without it creating legislative issues for them with the fare-box recovery statutes.

Contemporary CPD Transit Detail SUV
https://live.staticflickr.com/875/40...bb3eb593_w.jpg
Chicago Police Ford Police Interceptor Utility
by pdpolicecars, on Flickr

1990s-era CPD Transit Detail squad car
https://live.staticflickr.com/7242/7...85215a4f_w.jpg
Chicago Police 2432 Transit Detail 5-1992 mb
by mbernero, on Flickr

Thanks for the info. I actually don't use the Red line(or can work around it). Yeah as far as safety, I haven't personally felt weirded out or anything yet.

The Red Line has the highest ridership of all the lines, so it would be unusual for it not to also have the most crimes reported. Total rail ridership on the CTA was reported as about 225 million rides in 2018 (the last year we have full reporting for), although I don't understand the difference between their reported total rail system ridership of 225 million and the 186.3 million I get if I add up the totals for each of the lines. Anyone know why there's that difference?

Anyway, if I use the 186.3 million summed across the 8 lines, of those, 14 million rides were on the Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line (Cermak-Chinatown and south), 17.5 million were in the State Street subway portion (Lake through Roosevelt), and 40 million rides were from Grand north to Howard, for a total Red Line ridership of 71.5 million rides, or 38.4% of all riders.

The Blue Line is the second-highest ridership line and has 26.5 million riders on the O'Hare branch, 9.3 million in the Dearborn Subway, and the Forest Park/Congress branch has 8.8 million, for total ridership of 44.6 million riders. The the entire Blue Line, the second-highest-ridership line in the system, has 24% of the total ridership.

Together, the Red and Blue Lines consist of 62.4% of all CTA rail riders, so of course they'll have the majority of crimes reported, plus they both go through all the extremes of wealth that Chicago has meaning that more than some other lines, like the Brown Line, there's more of a mix of rich and poor for greater stretches.

^In between Legacy and Trump.....insert tower here. also kind of sucks there will never be a tower in between the gap of Vista and Aon from that view.

^Look on the bright side- our Supertalls are nearly perfectly spaced. :cheers:

^^^ Yet again. Nice grab! :cheers:

I wouldn't be so sure. We still have that prime lot of riverfront property next to the NBC building.

Site I will help balance some of the height out as it will extend noticeably farther east of Vista and make it look less lonely.

That's a ridic prime location.. how could they not.

Just an outsiders perspective or opinion, but I'd kinda hope future super talls rise near the Sears tower because if your looking at the skyline from the lake, you have Sears, and than a plateau of about 600-800' towers or so, and than there is a dividing line. I believe its Randolph street, both from the West to the East where up to this line, and heading North, the bulk of the super talls reside.

Kinda creates a gap in the middle between Sears and everything North of Randolph. I think this is a positive aesthetically, but I also feel like Sears is kinda lonely. Sears is what the ESB use to be like for NYC. I'd be nice if that area near Greektown or the West Loop Gate could fill up, and possibly include the area near the Postal Service near Clinton Street. I feel this would not only preserve aesthetics, but give the skyline that extra bulk needed.

That 110 North Wacker tower you guys have is a start, and I'd hope more like that or taller rise somewhat near Sears.

Not just via the lake perspective either, but if your coming from Midway airport. IDK, I just always felt Sears is just a tall abrupt end to the apparent skyline from a magnitude perspective, and that more infill in the vicinity will greatly aid in the "wow" factor.