Chicago Wine Bars and Illinois Grape Production
Perhaps surprising, the United States is the leading consumer of wine. Grape production in the United States over the past five years has hovered around one million acres annually. Average yield 2008-2013 ranged from to tons per acre. This represents five million tons of grapes processed for wine in 2013 and an industry valued today…
Chicago: Food City
In 2011, Michelin released its first "red" guide to Chicago restaurants and hotels. Chicago became the third city in the United States, after New York and San Francisco, to have a red guide. To some, this may seem like a minor matter, but the red guide is a marker of culinary excellence for gourmets, and…
Surveillance and Policing in Chicago…and its Discontents
Geraint Rowland via Compfight In the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, Chicago received national attention for its comprehensive network of surveillance cameras. One of the first cities to make extensive use of surveillance cameras, beginning in June 2003, the Chicago Police had launched “Operation Disruption,” a multi-phased plan to install “blue-light” Police Observation…
Chicago’s North Burling Street, 2005-2015: From Public Housing to Mega-mansions
On Wednesday 30 March 2011, demolition began at 1230 North Burling Street, the last remaining high-rise block of public housing of the Cabrini-Green complex that, at its peak, had been home to over 15,000 people. The 23 high rise public housing blocks of Cabrini-Green, built between 1958 and 1962 and ranging from seven to nineteen…
Family Activities in Chicago
Within a few minutes walk of the Hyatt, there are a number of museums and things to do with children. The best place to start your visit to Chicago is downtown at the Cultural Center. Not only does the Center offer free art exhibitions and musical performances, often at lunch times or early evenings, it…
Pilsen – The Gentrification Frontier
On the night of January 22-23, 2015, the windows of Bow Truss Coffee at 1641 West 18th Street on Chicago’s Lower West Side were covered with handwritten posters declaring “Wake up and smell the gentrification ... ¿Sabes dondes estas? ¡La raza vive aqui! ... Sugar with your gentrification?” An artisanal coffee roaster that has two other…
What’s in a Nickname? In the case of Chiraq, a Whole Lot
Chicago goes by many nicknames—from the widely recognized “Windy City” and “Second City” to more obscure and seemingly puzzling associations, such as “Paris on the Prairie” and “The Smelly Onion." Nicknames are important branding strategies used by civic boosters, and Chicago’s namesakes are frequently employed to market the city and its surrounding region as “The…
Found Film Offers Rare Look Around 1940s Chicago
Jeff Altman paid $40 for a canister of film simply labeled "Chicago" and "Print 1" at an estate sale on the south side of Chicago last year. Altman, who works in film post-production, transformed it to digital video and shared it online for folks to enjoy and help discover its origins. The Atlantic picked up the story and wrote a…
Chicago’s Asian Cultures
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) will be holding its next annual meeting April 21-25, 2015, in the American business hub city of Chicago, which can be reached by a direct flight from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and many other major Asian cities. It is little wonder that many Asian cultures feel at home here…
Drug Policy and Mass Incarceration in Chicago
Chicago’s status as one of the great American cities is well deserved. This remarkable metropolis is justly celebrated as a hub of music and the arts, as home to some of the world’s most iconic architecture, and for its vibrant public life, anchored in its extensive network of parks and beaches. At the same time,…
James Newman on Illinois Politics
You might say Quinn/Rauner was a squeaker, and Durbin/Oberweis was a cakewalk. Here’s why you’d be wrong. The outlook was bleak nationwide for Democrats as the nation approached mid-term elections. Despite improvements in employment, troop drawdowns in Afghanistan, and increasing numbers of insured persons under the Affordable Care Act, the public’s confidence in the Obama Administration…
Who’s got your back? Domestic Workers in Chicago
By the early 1980s, the introduction of neoliberal policies across urban America profoundly impacted its already declining industrial base. In Chicago, from 1972 to 2000, manufacturing employment plunged by nearly 260,000 jobs (and thus decent blue-collar wages). Soon the industrial economy was replaced with a service economy that consisted of low-wage service jobs with no…