What was the last time one of the Big Four sports leagues added an expansion team in a market that already had a team? I would guess the Islanders (1972)? The Rams and Chargers both moved to LA at essentially the same time, and the loyalty of LA fans to faraway teams was always sorta weak, so that's sort of a different situation...

I just don't see a lot of appetite to put a 2nd team in metro Chicago when the (real or perceived) loyalty to the Bears is so strong and the population growth of metro Chicago is essentially stagnant. Smaller but growing media markets are gonna be more attractive possibilities for expansion. I still can't believe Austin/San Antonio don't have a team, given Texas' rabid love of football. Oklahoma City and Portland also seem ripe.

I've heard the talk about London or Mexico City expansions but that's just idle talk IMO, sure the crowds in those cities will fill a stadium for an exhibition game because it's a novelty and because football is fun to watch, but actually supporting a whole season and delivering both ticket sales and the media revenues that an NFL franchise demands?

I doubt there would be no problem meeting the need and fill the coffers. Its still the 3rd largest metro and 3rd largest TV ratings.



But It will not happen.


The Bears would claw tooth and nail to stop it

The NFL would support the Bears.



So yes it would be nice to have the Chicago Cardinals back. Its not going to happen for just a few reasons i mentioned.

I think the Bears would have veto authority if another team tried to enter its (very large) media space.

That said, the Oklahoma City metro area has 1.5 million people and Chicagoland has 9.5. Half of Chicago would bring the NFL more money than having all of OKC. They only have a basketball team because of Hurricane Katrina.

OKC is the smallest NBA market and is threadbare with the attendance plummeting after departure of big 3. And its a college town so nfl is a conflict.

Next NFL city candidates include San Antonio, StL, Toronto, San Diego, Sacramento. If FLA can handle 3 teams Cali can handle 3 or 4.

No One is moving into Soldier Field with the existing conditions. They would be starting out with a serious handicap.

A stadium that is ready to go beats having to fork over hundreds of millions to build a new one, even with public funding helping out. That said its a non argument anyway, since the Bears would immediately veto any Chicago expansion team as has been mentioned many times.

That mcdonalds is a absolutely massive waste of space. No reason a suburban, drive thru fast food spot should be in a prime real estate spot like that.

One Chicago looks great tho.

I agree the parking lot could go, but I dont mind that McDonalds honestly. I don't fast food but it does have some redeeming qualities, and it certainly doesn't look like a suburban McDonalds, and even those have changes quite a bit in recent years. I love high rises, build them taller, all day, but there are other buildings in that area that are far more offensive looking/a waste of space, for instance that post office on Ohio. That should go long before McDs.

One thing I love about downtown Chicago is that it's dense but not too dense, giving a relaxing vibe. It's good to have low-rises scattered around town IMO.

Funny. We moved back from NYC not long ago - my wife has never actually lived in Chicago but visited many times before. Since she wasn't living here she wasn't really paying as much attention to the urban makeup here. She commented a few days ago how she finds downtown Chicago feels "taller" than most of Manhattan because Manhattan (outside of a few areas) has a lot of 15-20 story buildings mixed in with 5-10 story buildings and the actual tall buildings are mixed in. In Chicago though in some areas she was commenting how everything is 30+ stories and wondering where the "low rise areas are" LOL. You have areas like East and West Village which is mostly low rise and mid rise with a few high rises here and there.

I know what you mean but figured I'd mention it as I found her comments interesting.

I think what makes downtown feel more relaxed than Manhattan for example is the size of the storefronts and the sidewalk widths. In Chicago you'll have 1 restaurant which the same physical size in Manhattan would have literally 7+ stores in.

scattered low-rises are one thing, but a suburban-model stand-alone drive-thru fast-food restaurant w/ a parking lot like the RN McD's has no place in any downtown area anywhere.

:yes::yes:

I’m in a family wedding in Northern Cali and met a lady here who went to a convention in Chicago recently. She told me she loved it and that the city felt so vibrant. She said that it felt like how San Francisco “used to feel”, but now since Covid all of the tech bros basically either left SF or started working from home; to her, SF feels so “dead” now.

She said that she hung out in the Fulton Market district. I also found it noteworthy that an out of towner is going there to hang out instead of the usual places of years past (Michigan Ave, River North, etc). Of course she is just one person but it was interesting to hear her perspective

I've been pretty surprise with how many visitors have asked me about going to Fulton Market / Randolph St. / the West Loop. I usually just suggest they get food or drinks there. I think the west loop needs some cultural landmarks or institutions to really get visitors to stick around there.

^ A theatre or museum would sure be nice.

Realistically, though, something more than just restaurants and bars would be nice

PSA: go to 110 N Wacker for OHC. 360 views from the 55th floor.

^ Huh?

Are you overlooking WNDR Museum on purpose?

OHC= Open House Chicago!

Not surprised about Fulton Market/West Loop. It is a hip or semi hip area and as I've talked about before isn't unlike what happened in lower Manhattan in the late 90s/early 2000s thru like 10 years ago. Same as areas like Logan Square (though that's more like Brooklyn).

A lot of Chicagoans say that everything west of the Kennedy is like Brooklyn. But that covers a very big area and variety of neighborhoods.

I wondering if you can do a finer mapping. For example:

Wicker Pk	Williamsburg	

Bucktown	Park Slope	

Logan Sq	Bushwick	

Humbolt Pk	??	

Avondale	??	

etc.				



Whadaya think?							

None for me. Those NYC neighborhoods are double or triple the population density and are much larger in population. I see no point in comparing.

I think the poster is more talking about the personality types of the businesses, people who live and hang out there, etc.

It's been awhile since I truly hung out in those areas, but at least last night in Logan Square the people hanging out there could have been picked straight out of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, or East Village really. But again - haven't hung out there in a long time. Last night was the first time in 5 years.

And yeah I agree with this quote I posted, but I think the ask above is more about the business makeup and who hangs out there than anything else.

Welcome back!

amazing views at boa tower. Probably the only chance we'll get since it seems like theyll build it out into office space eventually.

Yes I spent over an hour up there and could have spent a lot longer...

Our offices are moving up towards the top of that building, I heard from a lot of people the views are really good. I'm looking forward to it!

Sorry to revisit this topic again, but a preservation-minded neighbor just stirred the pot by steering me away from Type O/N mortars, introducing me to Hydraulic Lime mortars. Referenced this site: https://hfsmaterials.com/restoration...e-mortar-tips/
Purportedly, the Naturally Hydraulic Lime (NHL) products are breathable enough to release moisture and eliminate effervescence.
Is going this route more than what is necessary, especially if it's unlikely that a building doesn't currently use an NHL mortar?
I can't wait to hear from all the experts here. :)

i think a lot depends on the kind of brick you have and when your home was built. if its after 1920-30 youre getting into harder bricks. if its Chicago Common, which is what most of the stuff is around here from the turn of the century (esp on the sides of buildings), that stuff is much softer.

in almost all cases the ideal solution would be matching the mix that was used originally. the challenge is theres really very very few masons who know how to work with HL out there, so youre going to have a challenge lining up contractors for that kind of work. most will consider Type O "good enough", but its hard to say how good or bad that would be without knowing more about the brick and the home. at the end of the day, if the mortar is harder than the brick youre going to run into some degree of a problem down the line

i didn't see any write-ups on this when the census 2020 figures were released in august, but the chicagoland MSA is right on the cusp of flipping to minority-majority. it will be the first major midwest MSA to do so.

i went looking for numbers on it, and not finding any, i tabulated the 14 MSA counties myself. as of the 2020 census, the chicago MSA was 50.2% non-hispanic white. given that was now already a year and a half ago, we might have already crossed the inflection point.

the chicagoland i was born into 45 years was ~75% non-hispanic white, and now that group is entering into minority status. it's really amazing to me how fast some of these demographic shifts can take place.


cook county already made the flip back in the '90s, but look at the non-hispanic white shares from some of the big collar counties in 2020:

Cook: 40.5%

Lake (IN): 50.4%
Kane: 54.7%
Lake (IL): 57.2%

Will: 60.1%
Dupage: 63.4%
Kendall: 64.2%

Dekalb: 71.0%
Kenosha: 72.1%
Mchenry: 76.9%
Porter: 79.1%

Grundy: 82.8%
Newton: 87.2%
Jasper: 88.4%


many of those are lower than i was expecting, some by quite a bit. the major collars have gotten so diverse that the entire MSA as a whole is now following Cook's lead to minority-majority status.

^ Is that why it gets easier and easier every year to find good tacos & goat biryani where I live?

Maybe. I have used a general purpose hydraulic lime mortar for the common walls. So it flexes and self repairs. You can see where past contractors used something wrong on a newer wall made of reclaimed common and it’s already disintegrated at the joints. So your neighbors advise for NHL mortar seems great for common, but I’d be worried about using it on facade brick which may be more rigid and require something else.

I think it’s worth calling the manufacturer to discuss how the product would work.

i would think so.

Lake County probably won't quite make it to minority-majority by 2030, but even if it doesn't, it'll still get pretty close to it.

Guys did you know downtown Chicago will soon need to be abandoned due to global warming?!?!


I can't believe I didn't hear about the waves crashing over LSD and through the third story windows of buildings downtown until now! I can't believe downtown was totally over run by the river like some modern day Venice!

Did you know Chicago is in "just as precarious" of a situation as NYC, New Orleans, and Venice?



Gag me with a spoon Diana you demented Coastie hack. I've never read such a deranged coastal hit piece on Chicago. This is one of the dumbest "articles" I've ever read in my life. Diana Olick should have her journalism license revoked for life for drooling this tripe into print.

Obviously this article is written in a way to shock people, lvdw. I don't question that at all. However, it's definitely true that Chicago is at risk due to rising lake levels, especially given the reverse-flow of the Chicago River and the current lock situation. Climate change is real, Chicago is going to face bouts of severe flooding (especially given the fact that drainage is more or less terrible in much of the city), and things do need to be addressed and taken very seriously.

The one saving grace of the situation is that rising lake levels are causing the most problems in certain neighborhoods along the shore, such as Edgewater and Rogers Park, not necessarily in the heart of the city. That's no consolation to those who live in/own buildings in those areas, but at least they're not in the center of massive infrastructure and skyscrapers.

All in all, the crux of the article is actually correct, but the scare-tactic tone of it is pretty pathetic.

Aaron (Glowrock)

^ Agreed. Flooding is a huge problem in this city that was built on a swamp

totally.

the issues raised are serious and worthy of attention/concern.

but the hyperbolic fear-mongering tone of the article, loaded with its factual inaccuracies, is entirely stupid and unnecessary.

Grade F journalism.

what we know is that climate change is literally happening as we speak and even in a best case scenario (spoiler alert: were not going to hit a best case scenario), we're locked in for 1.5C of warming which is going to have massive global impacts as it is. likely we're going to warm more if we dont implement some big time changes NOW (spoiler alert: we cant even pass a common sense piece of climate legislation to accelerate our transition to renewables). we're F'd.

so while we may not have ocean rise, we are going to have extreme weather events. generally, its understood our region is going to be wetter and its going to get deluged in big rain events (warmer air can hold more moisture) more frequently. deep tunnel isnt going to save us from these kinds of problems. we also have expansive clay soils that a lot of our older homes are built on, and these are expensive problems to address/fix which a lot of our city residents cannot afford. we also know that the Chicago region is predicted to have the climate of Texas by mid century on the trajectory we're headed on. to think we're just going to ride out the worst of it while sipping cocktails is some extreme hubris and ignores the real ways our region is going to suffer along with everyone else. the consequences this has for crops/vegetation/invasives/human health/pollution is catastrophic.

theres nothing "good" thats going to come from this. and if you think social unrest/supply chain failures are bad now...

https://climatechange.chicago.gov/si...ange-large.jpg

While I definitely agree that Chicago will have its fair share of climate change issues to deal with, to suggest our challenges are anywhere close to NY/Miami/NOLA/Houston is comical.

Chicago most definitely needs to invest in more infrastructure to handle more extreme storm runoff. And yes, the city needs to prepare for more violent swings in Lake Michigan.

But..... Lake Michigan != Atlantic Ocean.

The lake will swing, but there are various competing factors that will influence the water levels to go in any given direction over the course of a year:
- Extreme precipitation that will cause water level rises.
- Extreme drought that will cause water level decreases.
- Warmer climate means more evaporation off the water surface, which would result in water level decreases.

Also keep in mind the Great Lakes are one big hydrological system where water is actually moving from one lake to another, with the eventual outlet at Niagra Falls into the Hudson Bay.

The oceans only have one direction from here on out - Up.

So while Chicago will have to find ways to handle more extreme precipitation, and a more violent lake that may splash up more on given years, coastal cities have a much stepper challenge in front of them.

And if we are going to talk about impacts, you can't ignore the small positive impacts:
- Longer growing seasons and potentially more productive agriculture
- Overall higher average winter temperatures. I say average as violent swings will still occur from arctic air intrusions.

no, that's not quite how it goes.

lake superior discharges down the st. mary's river into lake huron-michigan.

lake huron-michigan discharges down the st. clair river into lake st. clair (with a small amount now diverted down the illinois river to the mississippi due to the reversal of the chicago river a century ago)

lake st. clair discharges down the detroit river into lake erie.

lake erie discharges down the niagara river (and over the falls) into lake ontario.

lake ontario discharges down the st. lawrence river into the gulf of st. lawrence and out into the north atlantic ocean.


hudson bay is not part of the system.


Of course, the vast majority of the water that leaves the great lakes system does so via surface evaporation.

cold winters are what keep lots of invasives at bay. if we dont have those, then there are whole host of pests/plants that are going to migrate up which our natural habitats have zero defenses for. all of that has massive implications for agriculture. to say nothing of our forests/urban canopies and the plants/animals that live in symbiosis with an environment that has been fine tuned since the last ice age. we're in the midst of a mass extinction.

also, we're finding our pesticides no longer work they way they used to as invasives are becoming faster and faster at evolving and dodging things which have historically worked at controlling them. but thats another story.

Increased rainfall will be Chicago’s near term problem to deal with. It’s already happening, especially in areas with inadequate drainage infrastructure. The city already deals with a combined storm/sanitary system that will be stressed locally, not just major waterways and detention.

The city will need incentivize alternative drainage at the source with rain collection cisterns in basements and backyards and permeable pavers in alleys and streets. In essence, moderating the problem as there’s no real solution to stop it.

Yeah, that article is mostly sensationalized nonsense. While the city will definitely have to deal with not only more rainfall overall, but more sudden rainfall that has a month's worth of rain fall in a matter of a few hours, the lake is NOT the ocean (as many of the previous posts have pointed out as well). If Lake Michigan rises to the point that it begins breaching its historic coastline and flooding populated areas, we can always open the locks and have excess water flow down the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico in order to help regulate lake levels. There are some complexities with doing this, as legally the city can only divert a certain amount of water annually, but that's something that we can fix with legislation. A rising Atlantic Ocean is not going to respond to political will.

Chicago will have problems due to climate change, but those problems will pale in comparison to what cities like Miami, New York, New Orleans, etc. will have to face.

would the volume of water that's able to flow through a fully opened chicago river lock actually be enough to substantively move the needle on a body of water the size of lake huron-michigan? i don't think so.

i mean, at 45,000 sq. miles, it's by far THE largest freshwater lake on the planet in terms of surface area. to lower it by even just 1' you're talking about removing ~9.4 TRILLION gallons of water!!!

and the chicago river lock is like 80' wide and 20' deep, so 1,600 sq. feet. you'd need a flow rate of about 300,000 gallons/second (for an entire year mind you) through those 1,600 sq. feet to lower the lake by 1 foot, which seems impossible to me.

to put that into perspective, the flow rate of niagara falls is usually around 600,000 gallons/second, give or take for seasonal adjustments. and that's freaking niagara falls, an utterly gigantic waterfall, one of the largest on the planet.

Guys in what way did I suggest global warming was a farce?

My issue with the article is the absurd suggestions that downtown was innudnated (literally the riverwalk flooded which it is designed to do) and that waves were flying into the third story of buildings. It's utter, hilarious, nonsense driven by coastal losers desperately trying to project their issues onto Chicago.

Chicago will face issues from global warming, we already have. But the lake isn't going to flood downtown. We will simply dump it out the river if it ever becomes a major issue. It might take more improvements, etc, but Chicago sits on a Continental divide. As much as we have issues with flash flooding, we also have a lot of places to send water to. If we merely left the locks open the lake would drop four to six feet. We could artificially keep the lake level low and are, in fact, heavily regulated into only allowing so much flow out the canal.

The lock on the calumet is much bigger no?

Yes, that's what I meant to say - St. Lawrence - I had a brain fart.

oh yeah, forgot about that. the o'brien lock also has a dam with control gates too, so i suppose if you opened all of them up and just let just let things flow, you could move a decent amount of water through there and then down the cal-sag.

still though, if the new pattern in the region is LOTS more rain water coming into the system, enough to raise the lake level many feet above long-term historical highs, opening locks and dam gates may not move enough water out. i guess we'll just have to pray for warmer winters and more evaporation to balance things out.

I think the issue is that it isn't just in one direction. A few years ago, the Lake hit a record low water level only now to hit record highs. It's this back-and-forth between extremes that makes planning hard.

Plus the Mississippi has been flooding in recent years... not a great option to just pass the buck.

Without a doubt it's astounding that the Lake could go from record low in 2013 to record high in 2020. Still, it's not like it's moving feet in the duration of a single rain event. The flow valves mentioned should provide options before the Lake could ever truly encroach on the city.

I remember hearing years ago when the Lake was low that there were studies to reverse the flow of the river back into the Lake and cleanup and return more sewage and storm water. I have to think the future involves flexible infrastructure to add cleaned-up wastewater when it's low and divert it away when it's high. For example, when it's especially high we could pipe water to other parts of the country who need it (a dangerous proposal for sure that would require strict guidelines and protections).

Diana must have copied the (also fear-mongering) NYT article from a couple months back that presented Chicago as more susceptible to climate change than most ocean coastal cities because of the speed in which the water levels change. There's some truth there, but, as others have said, there's no comparison to the scale of ocean water. If the ocean takes a piece of land, it's pretty much gone.