Reminder that your IL state senator would rather hand-deliver an electoral vote to Idaho than legalize starter homes in Peoria. I hope they’re proud of themselves in 2032 when 86 year old Donald J. Trump is elected to his fourth term as president!
Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci.bsky.social · 19h ago“Texas built 620 homes per 100,000 people, four times the rate in Illinois. The Carolinas were even higher: 773 in North Carolina and 829 in South Carolina.” www.chicagobusiness.com/real-estate/...
Over at A City That Works: Experts at the University of Chicago Crime Lab outline a series of budget neutral strategies to drive down violence.
Expanding on four ideas that could cut Chicago's shootings in half
A guest post from the University of Chicago Crime Lab
citythatworks.substack.com
Construction staging - while almost always well-intentioned to "minimize disruption" - is also a huge cost driver and adds years to projects. Local property owners should be able to have their thoughts heard and impacts should be mitigated whenever feasible, but gotta rip the bandage off eventually.
Over at A City That Works: It should not take 2+ years to consider studying the possibility of potentially upgrading a Metra Station.
Local governments need better feedback loops
It is not in fact enough to know that you have a problem
citythatworks.substack.com
Pretty cool to see multiple links to City That Works pieces in here. Shout out @smalldogsteffy.bsky.social!
Chicago Tribune@chicagotribune.com · 6d agoCommentary: Chicago has lost close to a million people over my lifetime. The next mayor of Chicago has to change this. We have to reduce the cost of housing so people can stay in the city and we can attract new people.
Democrats are playing with fire in Michigan and Wisconsin. This could backfire spectacularly.
Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social · last wk.Michigan Senate race poll from Glengariff: Mike Rogers 49.0% Abdul El-Sayed 38.7% Haley Stevens 45.5% Mike Rogers 44.7% #MISen mea.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/MICHIGAN-EDUCATION-SURVEY-REPORT-FINAL54.pdf
Maybe CTA should utilize an ultra-low cost solution to speed up the buses and reduce time-consuming merges. bsky.app/profile/nikh...
Municipal Corporation@nikhunder.com · 8mo agoNew from me! Chicago has far too many bus stops to provide efficient service for its riders—nearly twice the national standard. I reimagined what Chicago's bus network could do to make it look like its peers. citythatworks.substack.com/p/a-plan-for...
Is the rent too damn high? Are we ready to value people over parking lots? Is it time for Illinois to create more homes and more opportunity? That’s what I thought. Let’s BUILD!
It's wild to me how many people do not understand this. "Luxury housing" is not some ontologically separate category from the rest of the housing market. Nor is "affordable housing." It's all one big fluid market & when you build more, everyone moves up & frees up the bottom end.
Max Dubler 🏳️🌈@maxdubler.com · 2w agoThe idea that the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor are all in completely separate housing markets with no overlap ignores how things work in the real world. In the absence of new high end housing, wealthy people outbid the middle class for the best available existing housing and renovate it.
The question is not "are robot cars safer?" -- they are -- the question is "how do we use this tech to replace existing car trips, rather than add more car trips?" And the answer is a combo of pricing/tolling, reducing lane capacity/speeds, and making biking and transit good options.
David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 2w agoIIHS—the closest thing in the US to a neutral arbiter on AV safety— has found that Waymos are involved in ~68% fewer crashes than human drivers. That's a big deal, although the safety benefits appear to be lower than what Waymo has publicly claimed. A few thoughts 🧵
If I’m the victim of a hit-and-run, and if a witness can’t read the car’s plates as it speeds away because the plates are covered or illegible, I don’t think that’s a “minor equipment infraction”. See also illegally-dark tints. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/07/22/o...
Oak Park officials move toward restricting police stops for minor equipment infractions
Officials in Oak Park are eying a policy that would restrict police traffic stops related to vehicle equipment violations.
chicagotribune.com
Metra’s COPS app is very good at this. You can submit things anonymously, include pictures, discretely on your smartphone, and a real person responds within minutes. Would be great if NITA could get something like that scaled up for the entire network.
Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci.bsky.social · 2w agoCivic action of the day: I just submitted this feedback on CTA’s website. (Squeaky wheel gets the grease!) In short, CTA should have a text hotline to report issues. Nobody wants to press the EMERGENCY button if they’re in an uncomfortable situation on the train. And the chatbot is beyond useless.
This is also part of the reason Chicago has extremely high costs to *replace* lead service lines today. open.substack.com/pub/citythat...
Solving Chicago's lead pipe problem
Better answers for one of the city's most difficult challenges
open.substack.com
Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci.bsky.social · 2w agoNever forget that the Lead Industries Association and the Chicago plumbers union should have been put on trial for crimes against humanity. Their greed is the single reason why generations of Chicagoans were (and continue to be) poisoned.
![In 1986, Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, tried to buck the union. He proposed taking the lead requirement out of the code, after hearing from the health department that 1,644 children in the city were suffering from high levels of lead in their blood.
By then every other major city in the nation had banned lead pipes and Ballanco's engineering organization was urging Chicago to adopt a model city code that excluded lead as well.
But the plumbers' union stood its ground and opposed the measure, and thus it failed to win approval from the city's aldermen.
"Lead [pipes] have proven over a long time to do the job they were designed to do," Jim McCarthy, the union's business manager, told the Chicago Tribune at the time. "I'm hard-pressed to understand why people are talking about lead poisoning. We've had lead pipe in the water system here for 100 years."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4wzhwxvcetedwpgdhbfgaa4v/bafkreifhvgb7jivcar2zhpyft45i7irnm4dhddgg42jxsodvgcb6poo2rq)
New from me: Mayor Brandon Johnson's top criteria for NITA is not relevant skills. It's better to be a friend than be an expert. He makes a mockery of the positions advocates spent years fighting for. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/07/19/o...
Nik Hunder: Brandon Johnson shows us again that he doesn’t value transit but rather cronyism
Two of Chicago’s representatives on the Northern Illinois Transit Authority don’t ride the system enough to know its problems.
chicagotribune.com
It's pretty cool to see years of research and advocacy turn into a genuine policy win.
A milestone worth celebrating
Our first posting to policy success
citythatworks.substack.com
why have there been three proposals in seven years yet nothing has been built yet?
Block Club Chicago@blockclubchi.bsky.social · 3w ago40 apartments, including rental townhomes, were pitched for a vacant Logan Square lot. blockclubchi.co/4wOZmbz
“Mr. Carr said the buildings his group investigated were primarily in high-income neighborhoods where housing supply tends to be tight, like parts of Los Angeles, Ann Arbor...In areas with less competition for each unit, Mr. Carr said landlords are more likely to accept voucher tenants.”
Largest Landlord in the U.S. Accused of Widespread Fair Housing Violations (Gift Article)
Greystar turned away apartment applicants trying to use housing vouchers to pay rent, according to a watchdog group.
nytimes.com
Over at A City That Works: Tenant protections are good - especially if they come with tools to give tenants more market power in the future. But the new ordinance introduced by Mayor Johnson would be a massive step back for Chicago's renters. citythatworks.substack.com/p/an-anti-re...
An Anti-Renter Ordinance
Good intentions. Bad outcomes.
citythatworks.substack.com
NITA needs ambitious leadership that embodies the act's "one network, one timetable, one ticket" unified regional vision. The mayor's slate largely maintains the status quo, sending many of the same people back to more or less the same roles that got us into this dysfunctional mess to begin with.
Municipal Corporation@nikhunder.com · 3w agoYou really need to check in with your alder today (in the next few hours) because Vasquez will be calling for a roll call vote. It's not rocket science. Dorval Carter didn't ride, and the trains sucked. Nora Leerhsen rides frequently and suddenly the trains are a bit better under her tenure.
The two year old now yells "NO CARS" every time we cross the street. @thewaroncars.bsky.social, I've found your most loyal solider.
@nikhunder.com recommends against nominating board members who don't utilize the system, citing ridership numbers from Ventra cards for Lester Barclay and Michael Eaddy. Recommends CTA board member Roberto Requejo instead, who notably rides the system.
Downzoning in Chicago, like in many areas, resulted in: —Less housing —Higher housing costs —Higher white population share
Downzoning Chicago: How Local Land Use Policy Has Reduced Housing Construction and Reinforced Segregation | Published in Findings
By Yonah Freemark, George Kisiel. Downzonings were used by US cities in the postwar period to preserve neighborhood character. These land-use policies were associated with lower housing supply, higher...
findingspress.org
Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci.bsky.social · 4w agoNot to rub salt on the wound but this is a tiktok post from one of the Metra board members that Brandon Johnson just re-nominated. Just pure left-NIMBYism So I am not expecting much upzoning or TOD effort from Metra anytime soon (unless it’s 100% affordable and therefore unsustainable)
This proposed ordinance started out with some bigger changes to the design requirements that add a lot of costs. If Chicago LIHTC funded housing had the same rules as Illinois funded LIHTC housing it’s likely Chicago would get more LIHTC funded homes.
A Bill to Cut the Cost of Building Affordable Housing
Ald. Matt Martin is getting serious about construction costs
citythatworks.substack.com
On the community zoom call for this tonight I think the YIMBYs outnumbered the NIMBYs 3-1. Amazing stuff. The building is steps away from a 24 hour metro, and 24 hour bus line. Not even Tokyo has that! Honestly, it’s way too modest for the transit access. chicagoyimby.com/2026/03/lake...
Lake View Mixed-Use Development Advances To Zoning - Chicago YIMBY
Plans for a new mixed-use development at 1040 West Belmont Avenue in Lake View are moving forward, as a zoning application has been submitted.
chicagoyimby.com
Not to rub salt on the wound but this is a tiktok post from one of the Metra board members that Brandon Johnson just re-nominated. Just pure left-NIMBYism So I am not expecting much upzoning or TOD effort from Metra anytime soon (unless it’s 100% affordable and therefore unsustainable)
Keeping Barclay but taking a pass on Requejo is a real choice
Chicago Tribune@chicagotribune.com · 4w agoMayor Brandon Johnson’s new transit board picks include CTA board’s current chairman
Turns out that our police officer allocation problem isn't to Chicago. New York and DC also aren't putting cops where they're needed most. More over at Vital City: www.vitalcitynyc.org/cities-arent...
Cities Aren’t Putting Police Officers Where They’re Needed Most
On a troubling trend from New York to Chicago and beyond
vitalcitynyc.org
