NYT Covers Chicago’s Parking Meter Mishap

The NYT has an interesting article about the Chicago parking meter privatization deal that I was none-too-happy about last year.

Second City to Celebrate 50th Anniversary

Chicago’s Second City is the city’s worst-kept comedy secret.  Their alumni includes many of the best comedians of the past 30 years, from John Belushi & Dan Akroyd to Tina Fey & Stephen Colbert.  Congratulations to Second City for reaching their 50th year.

Second City Celebrates 50th Anniversary – Chicagoist.

Catching Up

So I am taking the bus again today. I haven’t done that in a while and I’m taking the opportunity to post about what’s been going on outside of this blog.

Emily and I got a new car. Our old one had become a money pit, and the maintenance costs had begun to skyrocket. Eventually the car would reach a top speed of 35, which is not ideal for driving on Lakeshore or 290. Totally unsafe.

We got a Honda Fit, and we have been completely satisfied. It’s a great city car: compact, fuel efficient, versatile. Much easier to parallel park. Aside from a nasty incident that if we’re friends on facebook you’ll already know about, we haven’t had any complaints.

With that change comes another: I am now driving to work instead of taking public trans. I know it is far less green, and I now use more fuel, but I must tell you, the ability to be home at 5:00-5:30 instead of 7:00-7:30 is wonderful. My evenings before could be very constrained. Now, I’m much more at ease when I get home. My night has opened up. It’s liberating. (I do miss seeing familiar faces and people watching on the bus, though. A lot.)

I’m also done with my coursework for my masters! Didn’t have much time for celebration though; I’ve since started an LSAT prep class. Logic games, reading comp….all the fun stuff.

Emily also finished her written proposal for her PhD program. I’m very proud of her for that. It’s an incredible accomplishment.

We also celebrated our 2 year anniversary this month, and my birthday. We went out on both occasions and had a great time.

It’s been a good month.

I’m (Slowly) Getting Back into Comics

Since I’ve finished up my classwork for my grad program, I’ve been relaxing a little by delving back into comics. Incredibly nerdy, I know, but I’m unapologetic about it at this point in life. I like comics. There it is.

I still don’t have the budget to start buying comics weekly, and don’t know what I books I would commit to buying if I did. For a while now, I’ve been following comic book storylines on Wikipedia, and staying up to date that way, although it’s not entirely satisfying. Recently, though, I’ve found some solid podcasts that I really enjoy.*

The first podcast to mention is Around Comics, which is recorded and produced by fellow Chicagoans.  This is a roundtable format show where a group of guys get together and talk about comics together.  It’s solid (although none of them give Cubs fans a fair shake), and very entertaining.

Another one I’ve listened to a few times is 11 o’clock comics.  This is a more rambling podcast with less structure, probably because there is more alcohol involved.  Aside from some overly verbose diatribes into manga, it’s also pretty solid.  Some of their plot summaries could be a little shorter, though.

There’s also Word Balloon, where another Chicagoan interviews comic book writers.  I’ve only downloaded a few, but they were good.  I liked the one with Geoff Johns.  Since I’ve listened to less of these, I don’t feel qualified to say much more, but it’s worth checking out.

Finally, there’s Tom vs. the Flash.  This is a different type of podcast altogether than the others I’ve described.  It involves Tom Katers (who is also a part of the Around Comics podcast) narrating and commenting on old Silver Age Flash comics.  They’re about 15 minutes long on average, and very entertaining.  He pokes fun at absurd plot holes, provides some hilarious social commentary, and turns out to be an unannoying continuity nerd.

I recommend checking all of these out if you’re into comics.  And on another note, I’m proud of Chicago for being such a treasure trove of quality podcasters.

*I’ve linked to each podcast’s website, but all of these are easily accessible and searchable through iTunes.

Chicago, “The Green Machine”

I found this on YouTube.  It’s part of a PBS series about Chicago that was done a few years ago.  I haven’t even watched it all through, but found it interesting enough to post here.

Was Ford Prefect Right?

At the beginning of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect recounts how he met Arthur Dent, the protagonist. Ford Prefect is an alien, and when he first came to Earth, he tried to introduce himself to a car because he thought they were the dominant species. Arthur saved him by pushing him out of the path of the speeding car.

This picture is from right across from where I work In the suburbs. Look at the land use! Look at those parking lots! More space is explicitly delegated to cars than to people. There are no walkways for pedestrians; if you walk through or across the entry, you look and feel like a pest because you aren’t in a car. The suburbs are littered with places like this.

It makes you think Ford Prefect was right.

Nothing is more appealing to a capitalist than a full mall parking lot, and nothing is more crushing than an empty one.

(Sorry for the poor lighting in the photo)

Should we feel encouraged or defeated?

Last night I took our recycling to the nearest drop location in our neighborhood. This is what it looked like.

All city residents know that Chicago has a horrid recycling system for such a large city. And the recycling industry has been hit rather hard by the recession. Still, it would seem that the city would want to do some routine pickups a little more often.

This particular drop spot is directly adjacent to the nature museum in Lincoln Park.

Jane Jacobs’ Requirements for Urban Diversity, Part 1

I’m slowly but surely working through my first reading of Jacobs’ seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities {buy it here}. I’ve been reading it bit by bit for the past five months or so.  I have reached the point where she has described the four main tenants needed for a city district to be considered successful.  Over the past few months, Emily and I have/had been looking at moving to a different area of the city.  Just as we were ramping up our search, I came to this point in the book.  I was planning on using Jacob’s principles to help decide which area(s) would be good to move to in Chicago.  Since then, two things have happened: 1. We have decided not to move, and 2. I have started school again, so I haven’t read any further in the book since when I wrote the first draft of this post two months ago.   Nonetheless, in a number of upcoming posts I am going to try to apply Jacobs’ “generators of diversity” to our current neighborhood, Lakeview.

Here are Jacobs’ four conditions to generate diversity:

1. The district, and indeed as many of its internal parts as possible, must serve more than one primary function; preferably more than two.  These must insure the presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for different purposes, but who are able to use many facilities in common.
2. Most blocks must be short; that is, streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent.
3. The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and condition, including  a good proportion of old ones so that they vary in the economic yield they must produce.  This mingling must be fairly close-grained.
4. There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purposes they may be there.  This includes dense concentration in the case of people who are there because of residence.

Below is a short video of Jane Jacobs I found on YouTube:

More Thoughts on Commuting

Taking the bus and rail to work most days isn’t always glamorous or enjoyable. But there are moments where I am struck by how much pleasure can be found in my daily commute.

My wife has talked before about how she enjoys her commute because it allows her to mentally prepare for the day. I have to agree–especially when I have the opportunity to take public trans. When I drive, there’s a little more stress involved.

For me, one of the most peaceful moment of the day is when the Red Line comes out of the tunnel after North & Clybourn and begins to make its transition to the elevated track. All of a sudden the sound of the train is redistributed throughout the city, no longer confined to the subway walls. The loud noise of the tracks is replaced by a quiet, rhythmic shk-shk-shk sound, which is pleasant in its own way. The train gradually climbs an incline, and at once the city comes into view on all sides. It is an engaging commute that many are not as privileged to have. At this part of the evening, I revel in my city, and take comfort in the fact that I am almost home.

Chicago leases parking meters for 75 years

Earlier this week Mayor Daley announced a plan to privatize the city’s metered parking.  The preliminary announcement was made on Monday.  The deal, which is for 75 years and from which the city will earn 1.1 billion dollars, was put to vote today–only three days after it was announced–and was approved by the city council.

I question the decision for several reasons, and earlier this morning I emailed my alderman’s office to ask them to reconsider voting for this measure so hastily.  Regrettably, it seems that my alderman Tom Tunney was one of the supporters of this measure.

There seems to be no reason why the city should rush to a vote on something that will impact the cost of visiting and living in Chicago for nearly a century.  As part of the new deal, rates will incrementally increase over the next four years.  The first price hikes will occur Jan. 1 2009 and some neighborhood parking costs will triple:

QWhat will it cost to park at a downtown meter?

AThe $3 an hour fee to park at prime Loop spots increases to $3.50. After that, the price goes up 75 cents a year through 2013, when it hits $6.50 an hour. Elsewhere downtown, the $1 an hour will double to $2 next year and hit $4 an hour in 2013.

QWhat will it cost to park at meters in city neighborhoods?

AMeters that now cost a quarter for an hour will increase to $1, with an extra quarter tacked on each year through 2013, when the price reaches $2 an hour. (source)

As I know from painful personal experience, parking and parking violations are a considerable source of revenue for the city.  With only 3 days to consider the measure, did Aldermans have the adequate time to consider whether the revenue received from parking meters for 75 years is worth the sacrifice in order to plug the $150 million hole in the budget we have at this moment?

What’s more, the private group’s lobbyist that had the winning bid for the meters is the mayor’s nephew.  The mayor made a statement that the group won because it had the highest bid, but to my knowledge has not provided any further evidence to substantiate the claim.  Yet another detail that will likely escape necessary criticism.

This entire proposal has aggravated me since it came to light this week.  I am not comfortable when government at any level operates in a rubber-stamp fashion, where legislative bodies do not fulfill their function to check overreaching executive offices.  And I am not comfortable when major long-term decisions are rushed to vote and poorly implemented.  Illinois for too long has put up with stop-gap legislation regarding budget decisions.  It is time that our elected officials at every level of state government to give budget concerns the adequate attention they deserve, and to come up with economically sustainable solutions.

In Indiana, there was a similar decision to lease the toll roads for a long term, which off the top of my head I believe was 90 years.  Their decision was even more controversial at the time because the roads have been leased to a foreign entity.  Yet Indiana is one of the few states with a balanced budget.  How is this decision sitting with Hoosiers now?  Are the two connected at all?  Has privatizing part of the infrastructure of Indiana led to a more stable government budget?   And will it remain sustainable and profitable for Indiana for the remainder of the lease?  These are the types of questions I imagine should have been considered in Indiana as well as in Chicago, and that were certainly not addressed by my city.  [At this point I am speculating re: Indiana's tolls.  My computer is having trouble  and it is getting late.  If any errors have been made, please address them in the comments.]

(This post on the Tribune website does a good job of identifying the key supporters and opponents on the vote and was the key source for my post here.  I highly recommend reading it.)