This piece is part of a series that explores the various perspectives around defunding the police. The Southeast Side community on the Calumet River has historically been an industrial corridor. The longtime home of the old steel mills has recently become the city’s designated dumping zone, and residents struggle with exposure to petcoke, manganese, and […]
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Posted inLatest
Chicago’s Climate Apartheid
n August 15, the city saw a glimpse of two possible futures for Chicago. In one, riot police clashed with protesters in the shadow of raised bridges that walled off the Mag Mile. In the other, a coalition of activists mobilized on the South Side to resist environmental injustice and envision a world free from […]
Posted inViolence
Op-Ed: The Violence of Displacement Continues Through Illegal Lockouts and Invisible Evictions
n a time of economic and public health crisis when additional tenant protections are desperately needed, it is incredibly frustrating that one of the most essential tenant laws continues to go unenforced. Anti-eviction advocates hope that increased public awareness and pressure around illegal lockouts will force the city’s lawmakers to enforce its municipal code. In […]
Posted inCommunity
COVID-19: An Illustrated FAQ
Masks: why they work When you breathe, talk, sing, cough, or sneeze, you release respiratory droplets into the space around you. If you’re infected with COVID-19, even if you don’t have symptoms, you will be releasing droplets with COVID-19. Covering your mouth and nose with a mask reduces the spread of respiratory droplets, which can […]
Posted inUncategorized
Bridging Chicago’s Food Gap During COVID-19
ylvester and Felicia Toliver heard about it from a friend. Catherine Williams found out from her sister. Lolita Taylor’s cousin called her to tell her about it. On a sunny Tuesday morning in May, they and scores of other Chicagoans—bus drivers and day care operators and home health care workers and custodians and retirees—waited on […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Museum of the Future: The National Public Housing Museum adapts to COVID-19
Leer en español oon after graduating from Al Raby High School in East Garfield Park, twenty-four-year-old Shakira Johnson started working as an office coordinator at the National Public Housing Museum. Her duties mostly consisted of answering phones, scheduling meetings, processing donations, and giving the occasional tour. As a lifelong public housing resident, Johnson was eager […]
Posted incoronavirus/COVID-19
COVID-19 Contact Tracing Comes to Chicago: Here’s what we know
n June 26, Chicago moved into Phase Four of reopening after initiating a shelter-in-place shutdown three months earlier to limit the spread of COVID-19. At its peak in late April, there were 1,400 new confirmed cases every day, but daily new cases now number around 200. Yet reopening to phase four, during which businesses are […]
Posted inDevelopment
What Does Reinvestment Look Like? The promise and caution surrounding the city’s Invest South/West
t the end of June, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) announced the first-phase winners for this year’s Neighborhood Opportunity Fund. The fund, which former Mayor Rahm Emanuel started in 2016, awards grants to small business owners on the South and West Sides. Lightfoot has revamped the NOF, and is […]
Posted incoronavirus/COVID-19
Exposure or Not? A Contact Tracing Puzzle
Solve the contact tracing puzzle using your knowledge of how the novel coronavirus spreads, or just basic math! Put a star next to the positive exposures! Using math to find out who’s been exposed? Contacts that add up to odd numbers are positive exposures. Contacts that add up to even numbers are not exposed. Don’t […]
Posted inHealth
A City of Extremes: How the 1995 heat wave and COVID-19 reveal what’s changed (and what hasn’t) in Chicago’s health equity landscape
n Wednesday, July 12, 1995, Chicago sweltered. A heat wave rolled in and clung to the city for five days. Roads cracked open and bridges were hosed down to prevent them from locking in place under the sun. And even though infrastructure faltered, the city waited four days to declare a heat emergency, delaying the […]