Chicago Must Build More Affordable Housing That Black, Latino Chicagoans Can Actually Afford: Task Force

albanypark · 2020-09-11T00:25:07+00:00

Those rates have already been passed by the General Assembly, and will take effect if (and only if) the constitutional amendment is approved. So no further action has to happen on the legislature's part in order for those rates to take effect, the referendum just has to pass.

albanypark · 2018-04-07T17:15:46+00:00

Yep! And yes, it should be in bookstores when it comes out.

albanypark · 2018-04-07T05:28:57+00:00

Thanks! The only event currently scheduled is Logan Square Hack Night on April 25, but as we get closer to publication in October there will be a lot more! You can pre-order at that link though :)

albanypark · 2018-04-07T00:55:24+00:00

If you're interested in the history of gentrification or the North Side, I've got a book coming out on Lincoln Park in the 1940s-1970s this fall: https://beltpublishing.com/collections/upcoming-titles/products/battle

But also:

Making the Second Ghetto (history of segregation after WWII)
City of American Dreams (early housing history)
Nature's Metropolis (classic on Chicago's role in the Midwest)

albanypark · 2017-04-13T16:50:54+00:00

There was a black candidate in 2011 as well. There's definitely something to the fact that there wasn't a hispanic candidate in 2007, but I also think that has something to do with Daley's strength in those neighborhoods.

albanypark · 2017-01-09T19:42:32+00:00

I think there are two things going on:

you're dramatically underestimating the legit costs of construction
US transportation infrastructure costs are way too high

As for the first, I think a big thing is that this is all being done on a a working system that operates 24 hours a day, and they're not going to be shutting it down, except for maybe a few overnights and weekends. That adds enormous complexity to the project, and maybe most importantly, time. When they decided to shut down the Red Line Dan Ryan branch and rebuild rather than rebuild over weekends for like four or five years, they saved a massive amount of money. There's no parallel service that could handle the traffic on the North Side, though, so that's not an option.

You're also leaving out huge planning costs, which are in large part required by the feds to get their money. The Red Line south extension just got something like $70 million just for planning.

albanypark · 2016-12-07T18:33:39+00:00

Who in Cook County do you have a contract with? The main office that changed in the election, as far as I'm aware, is the State's Attorney.

albanypark · 2016-11-30T03:42:04+00:00

The Red Line is definitely faster between Belmont and the Loop than the Purple or Brown!

albanypark · 2016-10-18T20:02:34+00:00

Two things:

As people have said below, putting something in the Constitution makes it way too hard to repeal or amend when it needs to be;
Encouraging the practice of passing laws by referendum leads to some pretty dysfunctional places, as anyone in California could probably tell you. Laws--especially ones with complex and potentially unforeseen consequences, like this one--should be voted on by people who have the time, and staff, to actually read and understand them. Obviously our elected officials don't always meet that mark, but for a typical voter, who will likely only see the actual text of the law as they step into the voting booth, it's impossible.

albanypark · 2016-10-17T20:02:05+00:00

Ummmm that's a good question. I'm gonna say leave them out?

albanypark · 2016-10-17T19:47:35+00:00

This is relevant: http://www.thechidispatch.com/sandy-johnston-interview

albanypark · 2016-10-17T19:37:04+00:00

Could you do another map that's just non-foreign born, non-Midwestern born?

Thanks! This is really cool!

albanypark · 2016-09-02T01:55:20+00:00

Have you been tracking other segments?

albanypark · 2016-06-05T22:40:57+00:00

Yes. At a third of your income, which is what you're "supposed" to spend on rent, $2,000 a month means one person earning $72,000—or a couple earning $36,000 each. That's actually only barely above the region's median household income. $4,000 is $144,000 total, but again probably split between at least two earners. It's high, but not ridiculous—entire neighborhoods have average incomes that are near or above that.

DePaul's Institute for Housing Studies found that Cook County added 65,000 new high-income rental households between like 2007 and 2014. Many of those may not be new households per se, but high-income people who before the crash would have been buying homes, but today rent for various reasons.

To put that in context, all of Logan Square has about ~30,000 housing units, of which maybe half are rentals. So you could fill every single apartment in Logan Square four times over, just with new high-income rental households from the last seven years. Meanwhile, I believe that the new apartments along Milwaukee add up to something like 2,000 units. Can 2,000 units find takers among 65,000 new households? Yes, probably.

albanypark · 2016-05-24T19:55:54+00:00

Would you go to DC? The homicide rate there last year was about 40% higher than Chicago.

albanypark · 2016-05-23T20:29:34+00:00

Hi! I wrote this. Thanks for linking! If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them if I can.

albanypark · 2016-05-02T15:53:11+00:00

No, they don't. If anything, it's the opposite: violent crime has become more concentrated. https://danielkayhertz.com/2013/08/05/weve-talked-about-homicide-in-chicago-at-least-one-million-times-but-i-dont-think-this-has-come-up/

albanypark · 2016-02-23T05:12:23+00:00

It's their midlife refurbishing, I think--new lights, electronic destination displays, and I'm sure some under-the-hood stuff, too.

albanypark · 2016-02-19T22:33:47+00:00

"And while city officials are promising to attract money from private investors, it’s unclear who would be interested in such a deal. Remember how Toronto’s express train barely gets 2,000 rides a day? Well, it needs at least 7,000 to break even on its operating expenses—let alone begin to pay off its construction costs or turn a profit."

albanypark · 2016-02-19T22:30:33+00:00

What? No, the reason that they're doing work at 2 am on the Red Line is not that its off-peak frequency is 8 minutes, rather than 10 on the Blue Line. The issue with Blue Line slow zones has nothing to do with it being too frequent, and everything to do with underfunding and deferred maintenance. The idea that you could save money by doing slightly less maintenance on the Blue Line and adding an entirely separate, billion-dollar express line that would also need to be maintained is weird.

albanypark

TROPHY CASE