The City



Best Places to Live

CNNMoney has just published their Best Places to Live list for 2006. Chicago doesn’t come anywhere close to the top 10, outranked by suburbs Orland Park, Aurora, and Naperville, which comes in at #2 on the overall list. You can check out how Chicago stacks up against the rest of the country, including [...]

Neighborhoods of Chicago

While one should always be skeptical of the veracity of Wikipedia articles, it’s hard to find fault with this guide to the Neighborhoods of Chicago. It features maps and brief descriptions of 76 different neighborhoods in the city. It may not be a definitive guide, but the next time someone tells you they’re [...]

Downtown retail

Big box retailers, discount warehouses, and grocery chains are scrambling to build downtown as more and more people decide to live in the city. Home Depot is planning a new store at Roosevelt and Jefferson, Costco wants a 135,000 square-foot site in the South Loop, and grocery stores like Dominick’s, Jewel, and Whole Foods [...]

Maps!

We found a slew of useful Chicago maps this weekend:
Chicago Census 2000 maps from the University of Chicago, local maps of data generated by the last census, including housing age, income levels, demographic makeup, population changes, and transit use.
CTA Google Maps overlaid with all the CTA stops let you pinpoint exact locations and transfer points [...]

Riverwalk a little gimpy

Mayor Daley’s plan for a riverwalk along Wacker Drive–envisioned as a $40-50 million dollar project featuring over 35,000 square feet of restaurants, retail, and dock space–is progressing a little more slowly. The city hasn’t been able to secure all that funding, nor has it found a single developer to do the job as it [...]