Not that I needed further proof that A City That Works is, like, Matrix plugged into my obsessions but dropping "cognitive behavioral therapy is really good" as a subhead is a pure dopamine hit. The post that contains it deserves many, many more readers citythatworks.substack.com/p/community-...

Over at A City That Works: The evidence for CVI is pretty good. But it’s still early stages for the field, and we’ll need more randomized trials in the coming years.

Keep this in mind the next few days, something to look forward to. But at least it’s $444 million to build

The NYC vs Chicago chart in this article is very depressing.

Over at A City That Works: you should be very, very suspicious about the claims you hear regarding CPD’s clearance rates.

I think its beautiful america gets to do this without even doing any particularly notable illegal corruption

The cta saw that City That Works bus control article and said “hold my beer”

Excited to run this piece by an anonymous CTA Bus Operator. @chicagocta.bsky.social could get a lot better at managing bus bunching if it tried.

I love this insight into CTA bus operations from a driver. They suggest starting a new team dedicated to managing bus spacing. Bonus: “Michigan Avenue cries for bus lanes”

My dad was also killed by a driver with a DUI-related license suspension. So many drivers refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, and the legal system just shrugs.

If RLE stuck to its initial cost estimates from six years ago, we could have *both* RLE and a Forest Park Branch rebuild for less than what we’re spending only on RLE today. A failure to control capital costs means less transit for everyone. www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.do...

“RLE at any cost” does indeed have some costs

Someone should write up a blog post about the major break points in the Chicago building code

At A City That Works: n the 1990s, crime cratered in New York and LA, but only declined slightly in Chicago. We've been trying to replicate New York's success ever since, with mediocre results. What are we getting wrong? citythatworks.substack.com/p/in-the-199...

This is the block where Riley O’Neil was killed by a driver. The street view shows a car parked in the “bike lane”, and a 9,000lb hummer in the travel lane. There is no way this will ever be a safe way for cyclists and drivers to coexist. This is not a bike lane.

The driver that doored Riley didn’t have car insurance, was driving on a suspended license, was parked in a no-parking zone, and opened his door in Riley’s path without looking. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/06/b...

it was a City of Chicago employee who was killed someone I talked to a couple times but not in a long time

I love that we can't build a really common form of vernacular housing that is proven safe, because CFD doesn't want to change their operating procedures.

It's hovering at around 100% these days.

It’s definitely true that the IBC is not written with dense urban environments in mind, but using that as a justification for a code that is *less permissive* of height is definitely a Chicago innovation

Chicago only allows 2-story single-stair buildings, below even the Illinois default outside the city.

Here with @strongtownschicago.bsky.social at Chicago City Hall to hear about single-stair reform!

To close the loop on this thread, this meeting took place at the same time as Comptroller Susana Mendoza's announcement that she's running for mayor. Two committee members — Alds. Silvana Tabares & Raymond Lopez — attended Mendoza's event, instead of this session.

I wrote about ShotSpotter, and the limitations of the new data that just came out. I don't have strong take on the technology itself (we'll do more there). But before we assess that evidence, I think it's worth being clear about what the goal is here. open.substack.com/pub/citythat...

“Friday night, State Senator Mattie Hunter filed a floor amendment. That’s a clean 2-4 flat upzoning across almost all lots in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Today, only 11% of city land is zoned for 3- or 4-flats. This would be a massive improvement in city land-use policy.”

If your “community character” is predicated on keeping people out of your community, it’s time for your community to ask itself some hard questions about its character

Huge opportunity for Illinois faith communities to turn oversized, outdated, or unused property into housing and provide opportunities to stay in our communities!

At A City That Works: In 2024, CPS celebrated data indicating that reading scores had rebounded quickly from the pandemic. Now we have better data - and the results are ugly. In reality, scores dropped more than almost any of our big city peers. (1/4) citythatworks.substack.com/p/cps-math-a...

I cannot overemphasize the importance of the BUILD package and other reforms being proposed by the Illinois General Assembly this session. There’s a lot to work to do, but overall the outcomes are exciting. This is a symptom decades preferential policy towards single-family homes exclusively.

This analysis doesn’t consider seasonality at all. The cut point is September, so it compares high-violence summer response times (with shot spotter) to low-violence winter ones (without). I don’t really have an opinion on shot spotter, but this doesn’t help, unfortunately.

BUILD plan fact of the day: it would start closing the book on decades of downzoning and exclusion In Chicago, that's largely resulted in whiter, richer communities. Research shows City Council downzoned areas already whiter & higher-value, then blocked new housing (making them whiter & pricier)

One thing I think people too often forget in the housing conversation: we are losing housing stock constantly. Old abandoned house torn down Fire, flood, etc. Two flat goes single family Four flat goes single family Single room occupancy goes big condo If we don’t build constantly, we lose

well, it took a year and change, but Cambridge's first-in-the-nation project to upzone the entire city for 4-to-6 story residential has finally produced the kind of thing it was supposed to: 55 units, 20 percent affordable, replacing a single $3m home

Illinois is facing a housing crisis. It's time to fix it.

Christian/LSNA are attempting to invent a principled rationale to oppose Governor's BUILD Plan. So it's revealing to see them simultaneously come out swinging against new housing being built on [checks notes] a parking lot.

You can’t “make the other units more expensive” if you want. You’re a price taker in the market you’re building in, and the alternative is to just build a luxury single family home instead. No affordability mandate there!

Who exactly is being displaced here? The car?

Related: rent growth in Chicago is about double the rate of its peers This is bad for anyone who rents here

Over at A City That Works: let's take stock of how Chicago did in 2025. (1/3) citythatworks.substack.com/p/scoreboard...

Listened in to a healthy discussion about state-level housing last night, hosted by @indivisiblechicago.bsky.social with guests Rep. Delgado and @rsday.bsky.social

The authors focus much of their attention on Logan Square. It's worth noting that @rsday.bsky.social already reviewed what BUILD would mean for Logan Square and similar neighborhoods: allowing more multifamily across the city reduces displacement pressures. citythatworks.substack.com/p/what-will-...

Two diesel buses in service are better for the environment than one electric bus

Over at A City That Works, a the new Matrix workforce allocation report found that we could free up more than 600 police officers at CPD to back into patrol and detective roles. But where should those officers go? citythatworks.substack.com/p/what-could... (1/4)

New from me: Turns out we can move parking meters en masse w/o violating the terms of a 2008 sale of our meters. The deal's terms are restrictive, loopholes are closed, and city council mismanagement has led to $161M in costs. I have a way to fix that. citythatworks.substack.com/p/lets-move-...

Hell yeah "This decreases total spaces (19% cut), modestly increases rates (12.6% aggregated), and reduces meter concentration.⁹ Most importantly, it eliminates conflicts with active transportation infrastructure and prevents the city from having to incur true-up costs going forward."

Last week, @urbanistcomic.bsky.social and I wrote about why it's important — and safe — to allow taller single-staircase apartments in Chicago, making it more viable to add density on the city's many old, narrow lots. citythatworks.substack.com/p/small-lots...

Not (yet) an expert on this, but COIs have very significant implications for wrongful conviction lawsuits against the city. 'Not guilty' and 'innocent' are very different things, and the distinction can make a huge difference on $$ awarded to a plaintiff in this suits.

Black Lives Matter and no human is illegal…but we’re against multifamily housing in Evanston www.flickr.com/photos/james...

A liquid market for rental housing is the best tenant protection

Another demonstration of the efficacy of automated speed enforcement in a US city. www.sf.gov/news-mayor-l...