She could rent an entire bungalow for that in like half a dozen decent areas of the city.

Most of those areas listed are sketchy at worse. They were never particularly notorious. You can probably find something cheap in the South Side communities, but the the North Side ones are definitely not that much cheaper than the hotter neighborhoods. $1k/month is not affordable to the people lobbying to rent control.

^ Bridgeport, Kenwood, McKinley Park, Uptown, West Ridge and Rogers Park are mostly not sketchy at all. Sure Uptown and Rogers have small pockets of sketch. This is the problem though, for some reason, some people think they should be able to live anywhere they want. It shouldn't be that way, it never has been that way, it never will be that way.

And rent at $1K is affordable to people making 60% of the Area Median Income. That's quite affordable.

^ There will definitely be some unrest if the officer is acquitted. The black community in the city is too emotionally tied to this case, and whether the verdict or right or wrong, they will be upset if the officer walks. I'm sure CPD will anticipate and greatly increase the amount of cops on the street on the day of the verdict, and in the days that follow if necessary. If there is rioting, hopefully it will be kept isolated and to a minimum.

not all shootings are homicides as i think we're all aware, and thats mainly a testament to our skilled trauma surgeons and how good (or bad) the trigger man is at aiming. LV has a reputation as a shooty place, because well its a shooty place. and it borders a neighborhood thats an even bigger shooty place. and that dosent touch on other quality of life issues aside from that like break-ins, gang loitering (which often is a precursor to shootings), etc. Sure not as bad as some places but still no picnic, and the average person is not going to be comfortable living in those sorts of conditions.

https://s8.postimg.cc/5gi5idj2t/Capture.png

I think part of it is that many tourists are skeptical of buses and resistant to take a $20 each way cab ride. Uber/Lyft have reduced that cost a bit, but it's still more than many people want to tack onto their budget for a specialty museum when there are great museums downtown. A South Lakefront 'L' line or a repurposing of Metra Electric combined with a bit of marketing would do wonders for the treasures in Hyde Park. A line that also served the North Lakefront to serve the Zoo and the Nature Museum would really help tourism and some commuters.

Alternatively, making the express buses a "real" type of BRT mimicking rail service would also probably accomplish 75% of the benefit, have more flexibility and cost maybe only 20% as much to implement. The South part would also really speed up the gentrification in Bronzeville, Douglas, and adjacent areas, which helps keep housing costs under control while increasing the tax base.

The South Lakefront express bus routes are already pretty good, but as buses they really only attract existing residents and are less attractive to tourists or new residents moving in from leases urban areas. I've always been a big transit fan, even in high school growing up in a town of 560 in rural Oregon, but most people who move to Chicago who didn't grow up in New York or the few other places with ubiquitous transit may buy into using trains from the get-go, but it'll take a few years, if every, for them to start buying into the utility of even commuter-style express buses. But make BRT feel more like trains and I think buy-in would happen a lot faster

Well I think it's as good a collection as the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, which is the most visited museum in Germany. I don't think that's considered a specialty museum if it's the most popular in Germany. It gets more than a million visitors a year, a bit less than the Getty Museum in LA. I doubt the Oriental Institute gets anywhere close to that. The Pergamon is right downtown and more convenient for tourists, that's why I think it would be alot better to have the Oriental Institute downtown as well.

It would be alot better with a good rail line to Hyde Park too! I've only taken the bus 3-4 times in Chicago. I don't like the buses, there always seems to be aggressive panhandlers and smelly people that haven't taken a bath in a month on the bus. I don't mind the trains, they seem alot better for some reason.

The buses are fine, I ride them almost every day. The only problem is that they're often overcrowded...

But there isn't really any bus line super convenient to the Oriental Institute, other than the UChicago locals (171/172). The 192 and 2 express buses stop reasonably close but are only available during commute hours. The 6, 55 and 4 are both a 10 minute walk or so (and the 4 is super slow and the 55 requires a transfer; moreover both the 55 and 4 go through some areas tourists might feel uncomfortable in). The Metra UChicago stop is almost as far away as the 6, but it probably would still attract more tourists if it was fare integrated with the CTA.

Since that will probably never happen, I wonder if a new LSD express that goes down Woodlawn between 47th and 67th would be viable.

The Root and The Trace both had very good articles about why Chicago gets the most attention about gun-related murders, even though it is not nearly the most violent city in America (the Trace has recent statistics to show where Chicago falls compared to other major cities in America):

Why Does Violence in Chicago Attract So Much Attention, Even Though It's Not the Murder Capital of The U.S.?
https://www.theroot.com/why-does-vio...ion-1828327783

https://www.thetrace.org/2018/04/hig...s-cities-list/

Also reinforces my personal belief that Ft Pfleger fans the flames of discord without really proposing any type of idea for change.

He was walking forward 10 feet away from an armed police officer with a gun, not sure how this is "strafing sideways". Luckily, we have video footage of the incident to show what really happened. Did the cops know he was on PCP? Is death without trial the new punishment for PCP?

Sure, he has his issues and absolutely deserves criticism. On the other hand, he is actually on the ground in these areas trying to make improvements, while you are on the internet complaining. What actions are you taking?

at some point we will have to start talking about the mayoral election and whether all the good news on job growth and tech will be enough to save Rahm from being sunk by the stubborn homicide/crime issue

Who is Rahm’s biggest challenge?

Lori Lightfoot and Paul Vallas are the most likely challengers. It's likely there will be another run-off based on how many people are running.

I’ve heard good things about Paul Vallas

here's wikipedia's list of declared candidates and potential candidates (in alphabetical order) for the 2019 mayoral election


Declared:

Dorothy Brown - Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County
Rahm Emanuel - incumbent Mayor of Chicago (May not be able to run because of term limit referendum for mayors in November)
Ja'Mal Green - executive director of the Majostee Allstars Community Center
Troy LaRaviere - President of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association
Lori Lightfoot - President of the Chicago Police Board
John Kozlar - candidate for alderman in Chicago's 11th ward in 2015.
Garry McCarthy - former Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department
Neal Sales-Griffin - professor at Northwestern University's Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Paul Vallas - former Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools
Willie Wilson - businessman and candidate for mayor in 2015, candidate for President in 2016


Potential

Richard Boykin - outgoing member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners
Gery Chico - businessman and candidate for Mayor in 2011
Valerie Jarrett - former Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs
Chris Kennedy - former Chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees and member of the Kennedy family, and candidate for Governor in 2018; despite speculation, he lives in Kenilworth, Illinois and thus would likely be unable to run
Ameya Pawar - member of the Chicago City Council, and candidate for Governor in 2018
Pat Quinn - candidate for Illinois Attorney General in 2018 election, former Governor of Illinois from 2009-2015, former Lieutenant Governor of Illinois from 2003-2009, former Treasurer of Illinois from 1991-1995
Kurt Summers - City Treasurer of Chicago
Scott Waguespack - member of the Chicago City Council since 2007 and chairman of the Council's Progressive Reform Caucus





given the number of candidates, and rahm's low approval numbers, i don't think anyone is getting past 50% in the first round, so we'll almost certainly have another run-off.

i think rahm gets to the 2nd round, but it'll be really interesting to see who his challenger is when it's mano a mano time.

lightfoot, vallas, and mccarthy seem to be the most serious challengers at this point, at least going by media exposure.

^^^ That's assuming the addition of more candidates eats away at Rahm's numbers and doesn't just shatter the resistance vote into a million pieces. The last election went to run off because it was immediately in the aftermath of the school closings issue. Even then Rahm was only 5 points away from snubbing the runoff alltogether. So if we assume he still has a 45% loyalty block like 2015 all that has to happen is for 5% of the population to not care as much anymore because they've forgotten about or cooled off over the school closings issue that's now over half a decade ago. Chuy was a very strong candidate backed by a very motivated and powerful special interest group. I doubt any challenger as qualified or well known will emerge.

Rahm also has a deadlock on the wealthy and educated portions of the electorate. As we've seen over and over again, those demographics have grown while poorer groups have largely fled the city. Maybe it's not enough to swing things 5%, but I think the combination of the growth Rahm has brought about and a lower enthusiasm from groups like CTU means he will eek this one out without a runoff. I'm thinking he will get like 50-52% of the vote in the first round.

^ i'll be very surprised if rahm avoids a run-off.


as an aside, i find it interesting that in a city that is ~30% latino ancestry (and in a city that is notorious for racial/ethnic tribal politics) that the declared candidates for mayor consist of 4 white guys and 6 african-americans.

with all of the anger about gentrification coming from predominately latino areas in the city, i would have thought that at least one prominent latino politician/community leader would have thrown their hat in the ring.

This race has lots of other factors as well. Bernie Sanders' campaign invigorated some progressives, which Rahm has never really identified with. A lot of the young educated people in the city fall into this group, I know because I work with lots of them. The violence skyrocketed following the last election which will motivate people. You have a former Police Superintendent who will likely hurt Rahm among that demographic. A former CEO of CPS may be able to pull some of that support. An African American candidate with huge support in the legal community. Plus now he has had two terms so you might see some protests votes in the primary.

source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...27-story.html#

I think vallas winds up as biggest challenger, except I have heard the CTU still doesn't like him

rahm could survive because he has the most of the least as no one has a solid coalition

preckwinkle might have beaten him pre-soda tax but she's nowhere now