The Grant Park course is smaller than Daytona and Circuit of the Americas but bigger than Darlington.

For racing, the controversial part is actually the right angle turns, because it makes passing more difficult.

But not many cities have wide roads downtown that can be shut down for the 4th of July weekend.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYEgOECXgAI6t30.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYEhEDvWAAUyb4F.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYEkp7-XEAEu7dl.jpg

Crain's article on Chciago Demographics
 

Great article that goes into the changing city from 2000 to 2021.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/opin...ulation-growth

https://i.imgur.com/CIXazak.jpg

Wow, interesting.

You can definitely see the collapsing African American population numbers in the city with the changes on the west side. It almost looks like the NW side and SW side Latino clusters will eventually join as the African American numbers in Austin, Garfield Park and Lawndale shrink.

The outer 'city employee neighborhoods' are also shedding a lot of whites, presumably being replaced by Latinos (this is clear in Garfield Ridge and Clearing, less clear in Beverly and the far NW neighborhoods near O'Hare).

The neighborhoods from the South Loop to Hyde Park are diversifying substantially, with many tracts in those neighborhoods having no clear racial majority.

I could stare at maps like this for hours on end. Thanks for posting it!

yes, fascinating maps.

also clearly on display is the white gentrification push westward over the river from near north and lincoln park into west town and logan. and even from north center into eastern avondale and irving park, though not to the same extent yet (but it's coming).

also, it doesn't look like there's a single census tract left in the city that's >90% NH white.

It may be a racial change but not a political one. These are still conservative city employees with ugly social attitudes, but now they have names like Lopez and Flores in addition to O'Keefe and Frankowicz. Ah, the melting pot!

It's always been interesting to me that, with such a huge city, the city workers are *still* so heavily concentrated in these corner neighborhoods even regardless of race, crime/safety, etc. Why do Streets and San workers not live in Avondale, Hermosa or McKinley Park?

I think a lot of it is Prairie Shores and Lake Meadows (maybe South Commons too?). Those enormous complexes have emptied out of Black middle class residents and filled up with a mix of whites and Asians. But because those areas are sort of isolated from the rest of Bronzeville by a physical and psychic barrier, the rest of Bronzeville still feels as black as ever.

Which is a good thing. You are seeing those borders becoming blurry as people choose different neighborhoods to live in. One of the things I love (coming from Denver) is how diverse neighborhoods are here. I love walking around a number of areas and seeing all walks of life. I suspect that trend will continue for the coming years as long-standing historical inertia of segregation continues to erode away with time.

At least that's my hope.

^ yep, the fewer tracts we have that are >90% any one group, the better it is for the city overall.

more light shades and yellows, please.

some of them have to, right?

my wife's good friend is married to a cop and they live in irving park (montrose/kimball-ish)

There's still over 125 tracts in the city that are 90%+ Black, and 25 more that are 90%+ Hispanic. None for White or Asian are 90%+ for 2020. I think there's around 25 tracts that are 80-89.999% White, and 1 for that level Asian.

^ yeah, still a long way to go, but the overall trend of fewer is still a positive.

Edit

It is shockingly concentrated in just 5 corner neighborhoods.

https://informationportal.igchicago....d-census-data/

Avondale has 236 city employees
Hermosa has 133
Irving Park has 432
McKinley Park has 124

Norwood Park has 1,966
O'Hare has 1,159
Dunning has 1,094
Mt Greenwood has 1,983
Garfield Ridge has 1,617

Note this data only includes direct city employees, not quasi-independent agencies like CTA or the Park District who also have a residency requirement. Potentially that might change the geographic results, as those agencies may have a different racial mix in their employees (CTA is certainly majority-Black, and the city's direct employees are plurality-White).

^ thanks for the link. very interesting data.

but it's too bad that it only covers a fraction of city workers (ie. those directly employed).

in addition to the CTA and park district, that data also doesn't include the big kahuna of city workers, CPS, which employs around 40,000 people all by itself.

A new thread for all of the Bears/Soldier Field discussion: https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=251830

So, y'all know how we've been noticing a lot more Texas and Florida license plates as of late? Apparently folks in the Albany subreddit have been noticing many folks from Texas moving to the city. One person pointed out the Worcester, MA subreddit has also been noticing more folks moving from Texas. Many folks in the comments gave their reasons for moving to Albany from the South. The #2 reason folks seemed to have moved was because they wanted to be somewhere more liberal/less extreme conservatism. The #1 reason though boiled down to cost of living.

Stuff like housing, gas prices, taxes, minimum wage, etc seems to at the breaking point for many folks in the South. The only places that are more affordable are small cities in the Northeast and mid/large Rust Belt where mortgages/rent aren't completely unaffordable and there's some semblance of public infrastructure. This would explain why I've been seeing so many out-of-state license plates across the South Side: from Bronzeville all the way to even Greater Grand Crossing. There are parts of Hyde Park and Kenwood where I've seen rows of parked cars from different places in the South.

Albany subreddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Albany/comm...x_of_extexans/

I've been stalking some reddit posts for a few Chicago boards. A few weeks ago there was one asking why there were so many Florida plates. Hilarious because some people were like "it's all rentals!" but then a bunch of people from Florida were chiming in saying they'd just moved to Chicago. Also I'm sure some are rentals, but I've seen many a car from these states that are obviously not rentals (i.e. have dealer plate or alumni outlines (whatever they're called) from those states, or are just old enough where you know not even the cheapest rental agency would ever rent out the car. On these Reddit subs, there are multiple posts a week from people mostly in states like Texas, Florida, Kentucky, California, etc asking about moving to Chicago who are either doing it soon or are considering it. Some international people as well. There seems to be a fair number from what I've noticed of people who are LGBTQ who are basically trying to gtfo dodge in the south and looking at Chicago as a viable option because of the affordability, the community, the fact of public transit/walkability, and how they figure they will be treated better here than where they come from.


Funny thing is yesterday I got contacted out of the blue by someone I used to work with in NYC who moved to Dallas 5 years ago. He was asking how the Chicago office is. He grew up in India, not very well off - and they were tired of living with their kids in a cramped NJ place so they bought a big house in a Dallas suburb. He told me they're bored out of their mind now - all they can do is eat and watch movies - and want to move back to a city type of atmosphere. So they're looking into Chicago. When I brought this up to some other co-workers and friends, each one of them had stories of some people they knew who moved from Chicago to TX in the last 5 years and are now wanting to move back for various reasons, like being bored out of their mind.

I'm in Boston and it's the same thing here. Snowbirds? My parents had Florida plates.

Maybe some, but there's a lot who aren't. Anecdotally we have a poster on here who made the move and his entire family is too (some already have). Some other people on here said previously they met people who made the move that aren't snowbirds. I've met some too, and on Reddit there's been more than you'd think who are chiming in saying they've moved to Chicago from Florida - not snowbirds.


I mean I think some of it is that, but there are a lot of plates from all over, and it's not just all warm places. I've seen a bunch from CO, MO (not super cold but not warm year round), MA, NJ, NY, etc lately.

Maybe it's just because Chicago is an amazing city with the right balance of size, affordability, food, culture, etc. Of course it has it's issues, but for so many of us, these get eclipsed by what we have here. I lived in Denver for over five years. Great city, loved exploring the state, but at the end of the day, I care more about my community and the amenities my city offers me. Chicago just has more of that at every level for the same price, if not cheaper.

edit:

Twister I totally agree with all you said. It has all the ingredients and the right balance. There is some serious issues though.

marothisu. This is all anecdotal. Boston is the same thing from what I see. Plates from all over and lots from Florida and other winter destinations. Not trying to downplay Chicago. I hope the best for it.