Whet Moser

A lot is made about red states and blue states, but it's more accurate to say the country is a patchwork of blue cities and red hinterlands. And those patterns follow rail networks to a surprising degree if you look at precinct-level returns. Read more

The city faces a big expense because of a non-compete clause in its parking-garage privatization deal. This will raise more skepticism about transparency with the proposed infrastructure trust... but it's not like we got great transparency or oversight from prior privatization deals. Read more

City Council signs off on a bike-share program (the same vendor as Washington, D.C., with the same pricing structure) and prepares to take on speed cameras; why Americans don't walk; and more Read more

A hunt for the location of a spectacular 1930s car elevator somewhere in Chicago's Loop leads to an august Chicago manufacturer, and the immigrant inventor of dialectical materialism, no less than the "philosopher of socialism." Read more

A bit of booze (just below the legal limit!) makes you better able to perform creative tasks, though it makes your memory worse. Probably because it makes your memory worse. A UIC team got some students tipsy and plied them with creative questions to investigate. Read more

Anywhere from nothing to $267 million in 2010, apparently The concepts are pretty simple, but figuring out a hard number is really hard—and even harder if you consider alternatives to Chicago's TIF system. Read more

Some notes on "Mr. Bellow's Planet" by Brent Staples, an essay about Hyde Park in the 1970s and racial fears on its streets. Observed four decades ago, written two decades ago, it still sounds entirely familiar. Read more