Chicago

Just months ago, urban revivalists could see the rosy dawn of a new era for America's cities. With rising gas prices and soaring foreclosures hitting the long-despised hinterland, urban boosters and their media claque were proclaiming suburbia home to, as the Atlantic put it, "the next slums." Time magazine, the Financial Times, CNN and, of course, The New York Times all embraced the notion of a new urban epoch.

Yet in one of those ironies that markets play on hypesters, the mortgage crisis is now puncturing the urbanists' bubble. The mortgage meltdown that first singed the suburbs and exurbs, after all, was largely financed by Wall Street, the hedge funds, the investment banks, insurers and the rest of the highly city-centric top of the paper food chain.  read more »

From the beginning of the mortgage crisis New York and other financial centers have acted as if they were immune to the suffering in the rest of country. As suburbs, exurbs and hard-scrabble out of the way urban neighborhoods suffered with foreclosures and endured predictions of their demise, the cognitive elites in places like Manhattan felt confident about their own prospects, property values and jobs. So what if the rubes in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tampa and Riverside all teetered on the brink?  read more »

Recently, Chicago-based lobbyist and election attorney Dan Johnson-Weinberger wrote a rather positive blog entry for The Huffington Post. The subject matter was how great a place Chicago is. Here’s a quote:

Proudly multi-racial, ruthlessly pragmatic, open to hustling newcomers and somewhat audacious, Chicago's unique culture is ascendant.  read more »

In Chicago’s recent history, when you think of beers, Jesse Jackson and his sons Yusaf and Jonathan come to mind. Yusaf and Jonathan Jackson were fortunate enough to receive a coveted Anheuser-Busch distributorship on the north side of Chicago. Just the other day, MillerCoors announced it would move its corporate headquarters to downtown Chicago by the summer or fall of 2009. The cost was high.  read more »

After decades of living in the shadows not only of New York, but such emergent regions as Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas, Chicago suddenly seems to be on a roll. It may be very close to placing its “favorite son” – Senator Barack Obama – as our next President, with all the enormous increase in prestige and patronage that entails. It could win the 2016 Olympics.  read more »

Recently, Crain’s Chicago Business reported on Chicago winning an award from Fast Company magazine. “Chicago stood out in our reporting for its creativity and vitality,” Editor and Managing Director Bob Safian said at a press conference here. “Chicago offers something distinctive.”  read more »