Taste of Chicago: Our favorite writing of the last few months

Source: briethe (Flickr)

We’ve got lots of opinions here at A City That Works. Many of them are informed or inspired by the work of the local Chicago press corps, or thoughtful takes on national issues that are relevant here. While we link liberally, we thought it’d be good to take a minute to highlight some of the best of that writing over the last few months.

Chicago-specific:

Many cameras. Little focus. Blurry results. Madison Hopkins (Illinois Answers Project), and Joe Mahr (Chicago Tribune). An exhaustively reported look at the city’s efforts to roll out surveillance cameras to support public safety efforts. The authors use reporting legwork, data analysis, and compelling writing to explain the scope of the city’s camera network, and outline why it’s not working as well as it should be.

Mayor Brandon Johnson slow on push to put civilians in CPD jobs. Alice Yin (Chicago Tribune). Headline aside, this article is less a knock on the Johnson Administration, and more a helpful explanation of the City’s glacial hiring process and the damage it does to public services. It served as a very helpful jumping off point for Richard’s broader dive into potential hiring reforms.

The Daley Show. Forrest Claypool (University of Illinois Press). A fascinating inside account of Richard M. Daley’s rise to power and the decisions he made that shaped the city. Some of the stories reflect the sense of purpose and tangible results that can make city government so meaningful – like the effort to protect the city’s airports from an Republican-dominated state government, or the discovery that the city did have control over the land that would become Millennium Park. Other challenges, from downtown revitalization to struggles with CPS and public safety, are all too relevant for Chicago today.

Zoning Restrictions and Demand Have Divided Chicago into Three “Cities,” Limiting Housing Availability Yonah Freemark (Urban Institute). The Urban Institute might want to shorten their headlines, but this was a really interesting overview of how housing construction has varied across the city.

A New City Tree Trim Strategy Produces Big Results. Not Everyone Is On Board. Alex Nitkin (Illinois Answers Project). City government can get better. Headline aside (again, negativity bias is a hell of a drug) it’s great to see coverage that prioritizes the results of city services instead of just the process to get there. As the article notes, it was a tricky battle to get the new approach to tree trimming approved – and the civil servants who fought for it deserve real credit.

Anthony Driver Jr. on Public Safety, Police Accountability, and Community Concerns Fran Spielman (Chicago Sun-Times). Technically a podcast instead of an article (although Spielman wrote up a summary as well). Driver Jr. is the head of the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability. He’s really thoughtful about the challenges and tradeoffs around policing in Chicago – including the damage done to community trust when streets aren’t safe and crimes aren’t solved. This interview also includes one of the best explanations of the uses of ShotSpotter that you’re likely to get.

Game of Zones. Leigh Giangreco (Chicago Magazine). The city’s zoning process is one of the least sexy and accessible parts of government - but it’s a key contributor to our housing crisis. Giangreco does a really nice job succinctly summarizing the challenges, with a mix of academic research, data, and juicy quotes to point out how the city’s approach to approving new housing leaves us poorer and more segregated.

What happened when Streetsblog Chicago accepted a protected bike lane skeptic’s challenge to count vehicles on Augusta Boulevard? John Greenfield (Streetsblog Chicago). While we don’t have particularly strong views on the Augusta bike lane, we’re huge supporters of the notion that people should be more willing to put skin in the game and actually bet on their beliefs. Kudos to both of these two on doing so and putting together a fun experiment for public consumption.

National takes:

A Common Sense Democrat manifesto Matthew Yglesias (Slow Boring). Yglesias has long been one of the best politics/policy writers out there. His post-election prescription for the Democratic party to win does a great job distilling the ideas we need more of from Chicago politicians, too.

Good cities can’t exist without public order Noah Smith (Noahpinion). Smith’s article hammers home the idea that public safety is an underrated component of YIMBYism. Making people feel comfortable with more growth (and attracting more people to grow in the first place!) requires making people feel safe. It’s an important point, and one we should remember in our efforts to generate more growth in Chicago.

How Madrid built its metro cheaply Ben Hopkinson (Works in Progress). Urban problems are almost never unique - and cost overruns in infrastructure projects are a particularly endemic issue in the United States. Hopkinson’s overview of Madrid’s metro expansion - and the host of benefits downstream of their cheaper construction costs - provides some great takeaways for how we should think about infrastructure projects in the U.S. (and Chicago).

The Evidence on Policing and Crime Jerusalem Demsas (Good on Paper Podcast, The Atlantic). A wide-ranging interview with Jennifer Doleac, formerly a professor at Texas A&M, and now EVP of Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures. It’s a great distillation of what we know (and don’t) about crime reduction, the impact of policing, and opportunities to build a more effective and humane criminal justice system. This episode is particularly great, but Demsas’ podcast is generally excellent – she picks some really interesting topics, knows a lot going in, and has a level of enthusiasm for the subject matter that’s really infectious.

How to Successfully Reform a Bureaucracy: George Waring & the Department of Street Cleaning Daniel Golliher (Maximum New York). In a similar vein to Richard’s overview of the Cook County Forest Preserve’s renaissance, here Golliher outlines a history of New York City’s Street Cleaners getting, well, cleaned up in the 1890s. A much earlier era, but still good lessons to remember.

Did we miss something? Almost certainly. Let us know what you’d add in the comments.