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What does 'livable' mean to you?
This summer, 10 PBS partner stations are exploring what "livability" looks like across America in the series Livable Future: Local Solutions. These special reports, part of the Blueprint America series, go beyond TV segments: Partner stations in places like Peoria, Ill.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Kansas…
Bringing life to the streets ... with yogurt?
Like all former MPC research assistants, Annie Lambla has moved on to even bigger and better things. In 2009 and 2010, Annie worked closely with me on our Placemaking Chicago project, learning what it takes to activate public spaces. Inspired, Annie decided to build a bike, pack her bike trailer…
Favorite place + favorite pie = recipe for success
My favorite “undiscovered place” is hidden in plain sight. It’s Breidert’s Green, a park in downtown Frankfort that serves as the town center for many of the community’s outdoor events. It's not exactly a best-kept secret: It’s used as the main staging area for…
FREIGHT Act a good start toward unlocking freight gridlock
In case you missed it, last week’s Talking Transit e-newsletter focused on the FREIGHT Act – which, true to its name, is all about Focusing Resources, Economic Investment and Guidance to Help [Freight] Transportation (FREIGHT – get it?) Here in metropolitan Chicago and northwest…
Lend your ear to support Openlands
Join Openlands and Grammy Award-winning recording artist Will Ackerman for an evening of music, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010, at the Spertus Institute's intimate Feinberg Theater. All proceeds from the event will support Openlands' Conservation and Urban Greening programs. Ackerman, a pioneer in the…
Community building in East Chicago, one bench at a time
One of the 11 principles of Placemaking, as defined by MPC’s partner in Placemaking Chicago, Project for Public Spaces, is to “start with the petunias.” Small and seemingly simple actions such as planting flowers or painting a mural are a great way to start transforming a space.…
Spongebob Squarepants offers a lesson in transit reliability
A few weekends ago, I was lazily browsing some Saturday morning cartoons, and caught an episode of Spongebob Squarepants that demonstrated very colorfully the effects of unreliable transit service. In this episode, Spongebob and his trusty sidekick Patrick go to a theme park and, on their way home,…
There's money to be made by living near transit
The other day on the El, I noticed an advertisement prominently promoting the web site LivebyTransit.com. Like a bee to honey, I typed the address into my Blackberry to check it out. Turns out New Urban Property Services, which bills itself as “Chicago’s only Transit-Oriented Real…
The rain along the Des Plaines falls mainly on the... parking lots, streets and roofs
Teenagers and rain have a lot in common. When they have nowhere to go, they cause trouble. It's been a few weeks since it stopped raining, but boy did it rain, and rain, and rain. In late July, we got more than seven inches of rain— what the Chicago region sees in two months during a…
Planning by the Numbers: CMAP survey shows Chicagoland needs better transportation options
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning recently released results from its Travel Tracker Survey, through which 10,552 households in northeastern Illinois provided a detailed travel inventory for each member of their household on one or two assigned travel days between January 2007 and…

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