Monthly Archives: January 2017

By Dennis Rodkin, Crain's Chicago Business | January 30th, 2017 More than 4,400 vacant lots in Chicago and the suburbs are going up for sale in an effort to attract development to areas that need it. With the new offering of vacant lots to be announced today, "we're trying to speed up the process of empty land being put back to use," said Bridget Gainer, a Cook County commissioner who chairs the four-year-old Cook County Land Bank. Until now, the land bank had been selling only vacant homes, to rehabbers or families who fix them up for their own use. [...]

Chicago Tribune Editorial Board | December 23rd, 2016 Outsiders like to define Chicago with convenient, obvious imagery. Obama and Capone. The Cubs and Ditka. The Daleys and the Blues Brothers. We know, however, what the genome of our city is. Belmont Cragin and Bronzeville. Avondale and Avalon Park. Roscoe Village and Roseland. The patchwork of bungalows, graystones and two-flats, its schools and corner grocery stores, gives the city its defining contours. So, to fix a Chicago that's deteriorating in some places and emptying out in others, you've got to fix its neighborhoods. Block by block, house by house. That's how you [...]