Sun Times Crows For Elitist Chicago

CityHall Vision for All  of us in most meighborhoods . . . and that Vision for all of them and the tourists. 

To thrive, a major city must keep re-imagining all of its streetscapes and neighborhoods. Sun Times

Without Vision the People Perish -The Book of Wisdom

The Chicago Sun Times has long lost any credibility to Chicagoans, people who live in its neighborhoods, attend its schools, pay its ridiculous fees and fines, while enduring the endless parade of grifters, grafters and goofs in public office, due to media stooging and propagandizing.

The Chicago Tribune has caught up to the Sun Times, but it continues to feign independence. Hal Hardick's bumshell of a yawn about working class boors needing to be replaced by working class boors of another race is an example Medill magic making Rahm seem to care, really care about the feelings of people universal.  Inspector Joseph Ferguson's pre-wrapped gift to Rahm needed more trumpet time.

You see the pipe trades and tangential trades unions were the first to wildly support Mayor Emanuel for his ludicrous second term.  They delivered.  Rahm can not reciprocate and therefore must send a message - the door on 5 is closed.  He slit the throat of his 'friend' Barrett Murphy in very public manner, in order to shore up his support of an African American lawsuit against close-knit ethnic ( media code for white, Catholic and usually Irish racists) leadership and rank and file in the Chicago Water Department.

E-mails revealed that pipe trades people engage in racist, homophobic and sexist banter.  Lord have Mercy, what a shock.

E-mails in the future will reveal similar attitudes, because " Dominance hierarchies exist in numerous social species, and rank in such hierarchies can dramatically influence the quality of an individual’s life. " — Robert Sapolsky.  The sword cuts two ways. Irish out and African American's in - Oh, wait a minute.  That's right.  The Irish still are dominant hierarchy of most trade unions.

Rahm needs time to work out exactly what the seismic shift in ethnic hegemony in the Water Department will mean to him and his brother elites.

The Tribune plays for time.  The Sun Times plays for the long game. The long game is for the zero-matter voter - people who buy in and play along.

The Sun Times chirped this brain-fart of an editorial

Sun-Times Editorial Board- To thrive, a major city must keep re-imagining all of its streetscapes and neighborhoods.
Chicago succeeded on that score last week as state and local officials unveiled their latest redevelopment plans for Lake Shore Drive from Grand Avenue north to Hollywood Avenue.

We don’t know where the money will come from, or even how much it would cost overall. But we hope some of the beguiling notions laid out in the plans inspire city leaders sufficiently to  lift at least some of these ideas off of the drawing boards and move them to reality.Among the concepts are straightening the hazardous S-curve near Oak Street Beach a bit, adding park land and installing more bike and pedestrian pathways. The goal is to speed traffic, ease pedestrian and cycling congestion and minimize flooding on wavy days. Construction won’t begin until 2019 at the earliest.

Ideas that fell by the wayside in the planning process include a light rail line and sending the Drive underground through a tunnel below Oak Street Beach. (emphasis my own)

Now, why did I highlight those locations for this 'visionary' miracle?  They ain't in Englewood.  They ain't in Back of the Yards. They ain't in New City.  They sure as hell ain't in Brighton Park.

Vision for city means the whole city, not just the choice chops of real estate with pretty infrascture.

The elitist vision is Chicago -50th Ward,  47th Ward, 46th Ward, 44th Ward, 42rd Ward, 41st Ward, 33rd Ward, 32nd Ward, 26th Ward,  20th Ward, 11th Ward, 5th Ward, 4th Ward, 3rd Ward, 2nd Ward, 1st Ward.  Roughly 75th & Lake shore Drive to Evanston and O'Hare Airport to the Loop.

These sixteen Wards represent who and what is important to Progressive Democratic Chicago - the global city.

Englewood, Brainerd, Grand Crossing, Gresham, Morgan Park, Beverly Mount Greenwood will be allowed to be mirror images of Ford Heights, Robbins, Markham, Harvey and Dalton.

From the garbage grid through this plan of limited scope and vision, Progressive Democratic Chicago is about shrinking the map and eliminating the neighborhoods.

Rahm's vision would never consider placing a trades school in Englewood when one can turn neighborhood Lindblom High School into a Magnet school, benefiting very few students living within walking distance.

Rahm's vision, like Richie Daley's seeks to get the most for the fewest number of people and shed the skins of all others.

Imagine if Rahm, the two Chicago newspapers, the bow-tied tweedy goofs at our private but public policy driven universities actually cared about people, homicides, justice, or the future.

Imagine.  Putting resources into neighborhood values-centered education that would help kids from K-12 develop skills that would make them competitors, who placed service, pride in work and family above getting over on people. Kids could learn and develop the skills necessary to become pipe-fitters and engineers and gain immediate admission to apprenticeship programs.  Kids need to know that 1/8th is larger than 1/16th and much larger than 1/32nd -Rahm's CPS has not managed to divine that mystery for generations of kids. Imagine that.

Politicians do not imagine, they appropriate. A recent article in the Chicago Tribune by Anne Little told the story of Olmstead's Riverside.  That is vision.

Frederick Law Olmstead created the only ideal living space in Cook County - Riverside, IL.  He came to Chicago with a whole vision - you know holistic. He wanted a respite from Chicago and its teeming neighborhoods packed with competing ethnicities.

 "The city, as yet, has no true suburb . . . in which urban and rural advantages are agreeably combined." Olmsted envisioned Riverside as a sylvan retreat where "the conveniences peculiar to the finest modern towns" would be combined with "the domestic advantages of a most charming country."

Daley and Rahm, with help from the globalist academics, pared down Chicago closing neighborhood saloons, eliminating parking, section 8 housing scams, paying off ludicrous lawsuits without the slightest challenge, looting pensions for foreign (Russian & Red China ) investments, race baiting, eliminating Ward autonomy until neighborhoods became empty of middle class values and initiatives and hope deserts.

The Sun Times has been the most obedient servant in these efforts.

Today's huzzah for a piecemeal streetscape for disposable income demographic as if it were Dan Burnham resurrected is just one more nail in Chicago's coffin.  Vision my broad manly ass.  Chiacgo is going to Hell - a Progressive Democratic Hell.

Hell is a place where the bartenders are physicists, the accountants are historians, the traffic engineers are experimental psychologists, and the clothing shops are run by geologists.

Rahm's Garbage Grid, Layoffs and Meeting Tuition Payments for Catholic Schools

 

The Beverly Review recently reported on a meeting of residents of the 19th Ward and Alderman Matt O'Shea. 

"The program concluded with a discussion on the city’s move to a grid garbage collection system that will be implemented in the 19th Ward in 2013. The program, O’Shea said, will save the city between $15 and $17 million in 2013 and $20 million in 2014 by essentially doing the same amount of work with fewer crews.

Currently, O’Shea said, there are 11 Streets and Sanitation crews that work five days a week to collect garbage in the 19th Ward. Under a grid system, all 48 of the city’s Streets and Sanitation crews will “saturate” an area of the city at once, thereby eliminating the work of seven crews per week (55 minus 48).

The 19th Ward’s garbage collection day under the grid system will most likely be Monday, O’Shea said, and recycling pick-up will continue every other week. Local residents, he said, will receive written notification before the new system is implemented." (emphases my own)

This gives me pause.  Great pause.  The same amount of work will be performed by fewer crews, who now work five days per week, but they will be part of a 48 crew city-wide.  Seven crews will be eliminated.

Is that seven(7) crews Tops?  Citywide?  Which Ward's crews will get the chop?  Back in 2008 when the well-coiffed Inspector General Dave Hoffman was all the rage, a typical garbage collection crew consisted of  three persons.( an MTD, the driver, and two Laborers) who work 8 1/2 hour days 30 minutes of paid lunch.

Even the well-coiffed IG Dave Hoffman had to admit that Bureau of Sanitation (BOS) workers had a "dirty and smelly job."  Gee, You Think, Dave?   Dave wrote a hair-raisingly hysterical Jeremiad against these 'dirty and smelly' crews in 2008 and bean-counted his assessment that most crews ( Dave counted *only 10 Wards out of the 50 btw) to the conclusion that these 'dirty and smelly' workers loafed an average of TWO HOURS A DAY!!!!!!!!

Systemic Loafing, People!!!!! Quod Erat Demonstrandum!!!!  We need the Garbage Grid Pronto!

Hey, thanks for playing your part there Dave!  How are things working out for you in the post-political life?

Well, the Grid is coming.  More crews will be laid-off, smart-sized, re-configured, no longer compensated, bereft of salary.  Thank God, for the great souled reformers! Why even this morning the Sun Times caught some poor slob napping on the job!

You see that is how Progressives roll.  Find some clouted mope who games the system, tag his behavior as SYSTEMIC, and fire hundreds of solid people standing in the way of some Red Light Camera, $100 M. Riverwalks**, CPS - Our Lady of Perpetual Helplessness, Garbage Grid, Claypool's Pee-breaks, Ventra Card, or Bombardier CTA Car boondoggle, which are the necessary components to Chicago -Urban Center.

What will happen to the families of Sanitation Crew member laid off in sacrifice to Progressive Mammon?

Well, they won't be making obscene lower middle class salaries; that's for sure.  Some MTD Streets and San Driver with three kids in Catholic Schools had better re-evaluate his life choices!  Some Laborers will need to pull Marsha from Queen of Peace High School and send her Madam Curie.

The City workers that I know are breeders who send their kids to Catholic elementary and secondary schools.  Like their neighbors who happen to be electricians, carpenters, cement finishers and sprinkler fitters, the Hope & Change Economy, that is GW Bush's fault 100%,  they can only hope that something will change.  Well, there is Marriage Equality, after all, but that won't pay the $10 K tuition for a Catholic high school education.

The Progressive gets a win-win out of this.  With Garbage Grid and other up-coming City of Chicago employment downturns ( privatized police and fire n'cest pas?), fewer families can afford to send their kids to Catholic schools and fewer kids will learn Catholic teaching and fewer voices will oppose SYSTEMIC CHANGES UNIVERSAL!

Huzzah!  It's an Andy Shaw Rodeo, folks!

Nope, Rahm's Garbage Grid and Obama's Economy are here to stay.  Catholic Schools like Leo High School are working hard to help our middle and lower middle class neighbors meet the opportunity to get a Catholic Education.  It is a systemic thing with Catholics.

Over the next few weeks, I explain exactly how Chicago families can budget against Rahm's Garbage Grid and the Obama Economy.


*"Between May and September, IG investigators spied on 77 garbage truck drivers and 145 laborers in 10 wards. They reported what they called "systemic, pervasive" waste and fraud".Tribune

** Please diagram the following sentence - "The truth is, we're now at a juncture in the history of the city of reintroducing the city to the river and the river to the city," Emanuel said. Chicago Tribune

Though The Hipster-Cool Cities Plan Has Failed Everywhere Else, Chicago Continues Its Drive to the Hoop - You Know, South, West and North of the Loop

Hipster's Dream City!

Burning money trying to become “cooler” ends up looking something like the metropolitan equivalent to a midlife crisis. Joel Kotkin

We had a Leo Alumni meeting at Father Perez Knights of Columbus Council 1444 in Mount Greenwood here on the south side last night.  It was great.  Irish kids from the Classes of 1943, '44 and &  and Black Kids from the 70's, 80's and 90's.  There were about sixty kids all told -For Light-hearted Boys Make the Best of Old Man, as the Irish song goes.



The Alumni Banquet is upon us and the class captains reported on tables purchased followed by President Dan McGrath's report on the school.  Leo High School was represented by Dan, Mike Holmes '76, Coach Noah Cannon '91 and yours truly.  Prior to the start of the meeting Mike and Noah spoke of the march of folly by CPS in the closing of neighborhood schools. "Where are the kids from Alonzo Stagg Elementary supposed to go?"  Aldermen who support Mayor Rahm in all things are now faced by their constituents and the race card is tossed freely, as in all things necessry to the subject.

(Alderman Carrie) Austin said she had not been told which schools in her far South Side ward are in line to be shut down. But most of the schools targeted by the district are in predominantly black neighborhoods on the South and West sides
"I don't think anything is a done deal in this city. I'm not going to let them do this to us, not again," she said. "Every time the whites get to screaming and hollering, they back off and steamroll over black and brown folks. Not this time."

This time and everytime, Carrie; make book on it.  It is not a white and black issue.  It is the PLAN.  The PLAN is to eliminate neighborhoods by shooing the helots (white,black,brown,and pale) the Hell out of Chicago's City Limits by whatever means necesary ( Ventra Cards, crumby to closed schools, thug comfort zones, idiotic ordinances and the attached fees, property tax increases and garbage grid boondoggles).

The PLAN has a goal of -CHICAGO Urban Center City.  This has been brewing from the time that Richie Daley took to hanging around University of Chicago dudes and turned his back on Bridgeport friends.  Daley took Frank Krusie -the CTA genius, Forrest Claypool -the job hopper and CTA genius, the Hyde Park Mafia ( John Rogers, Valerie Jarrett, Judson Miner, Allison Davis, Bill Ayers and Arne Duncan) and told the bad boys of the Hamburg Club to stay off his porch.

• Bike Lanes -Good!
• Red Line Safe & On Time -Bad
• Red Light Cameras -Good
• Cops and Firefighters -Bad
• City Services - Bad
• Open Green Spaces -Good
• Churches and the People Who Go to Them-Very Bad
• Hooka Centers -Very, Very Good
• Schools -Who Cares ! We Have Degrees from Columbia! Make Chicago Your Classroom!
• Neighborhoods - Unevolved: Too many Breeders and their damn kids with their Parades; we need Green Spaces and Bike Lanes

See? Progressive, going back to the 1970's.

The idea of the PLAN is that by creating a Creative/Intellectual Demographic as the urban core population, all the other pains-in-the ass folks black, white, brown, or pale could get the Hell out and visit Urban Center Chicago on holidays, the weekends, and when paying traffic, parking and City Ordinance fees.

Urban Centers, a comfort-zone for affluent childless couples, single secular degree'd, Progressive, fitness conscious, trendy urban pioneers, has been the template for city government too lazy, corrupt, or Progressive to make thoughtful investments in time, treasure and talent to provide adequate services to the tax-payers who dwell in neighborhoods.

This template cracked under the weight of its own folly, the Geography of hipness:

Geography of Hip Coolness

Perhaps the best that can be said about the creative-class idea is that it follows a real, if overhyped, phenomenon: the movement of young, largely single, childless and sometimes gay people into urban neighborhoods. This Soho-ization—the transformation of older, often industrial urban areas into hip enclaves—is evident in scores of cities. It can legitimately can be credited for boosting real estate values from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Wicker Park in Chicago and Belltown in Seattle to Portland’s Pearl District as well as much of San Francisco.
Yet this footprint of such “cool” districts that appeal to largely childless, young urbanistas in the core is far smaller in most cities than commonly reported. Between 2000 and 2010, notes demographer Wendell Cox, the urban core areas of the 51 largest metropolitan areas—within two miles of the city’s center—added a total of 206,000 residents. But the surrounding rings, between two and five miles from the core, actually lost 272,000. In contrast to those small gains and losses, the suburban areas—between 10 and 20 miles from the center —experienced a growth of roughly 15 million people.
The smallness of the potentially “hip” core is particularly pronounced in Rust Belt cities such as Cleveland and St. Louis, where these core districts are rarely home to more than 1 or 2 percent of the city’s shrinking population. Yet the subsidy money for developers is often justified in the name of “reviving” the entire city, most of which has continued to deteriorate.

The Politics of Hipness -

Investments in “cool” districts may well appeal to some young professionals, particularly before they get married and have children. But overall, as Florida himself now admits, it has done little overall for the urban middle class, much less the working class or the poor.
Indeed in many ways the Floridian focus on industries like entertainment, software, and social media creates a distorted set of economic priorities. The creatives, after all, generally don’t work in factories or warehouses. So why assist these industries? Instead the trend is to declare good-paying blue collar professions a product of the past. If you can’t find work in deindustrialized Michigan, suggests Salon’s Ray Fisman, one can collect “ more than a few crumbs” by joining the service class and serving food, cutting hair or grass in creative capitals like San Francisco or Austin.
These limitations of the “hip cool” strategy to drive broad-based economic growth have been evident for years. Conservative critics, such as the Manhattan Institute’sSteve Malanga have pointed out that many creative-class havens often underperform economically compared to their less hip counterparts. More liberalacademic analysts have denounced the idea as “ exacerbating inequality and exclusion.” One particularly sharp critic, the University of British Columbia’s Jamie Peck see it as little more than a neo-liberal recipe of “biscotti and circuses.”
Urban thinker Aaron Renn puts it in political terms: “the creative class doesn’t have much in the way of coattails.”

And as today's Tribune CPS feature displays - RACE - The very people

On paper, the “creative class” theory worships at the altar of diversity. “The great thing about cities,” Florida told NPR last year, “is they're diverse. There's diverse people in them.” Yet even leaving aside their lack of economic diversity, the exemplars of “hip cool” world, notes urban analyst Renn, tend to be vanilla cities with relatively small minority populations. San Francisco, Portland and Seattle are becoming whiter and less ethnically diverse as the rest of the country, andparticularly the suburbs, rapidly diversify.
Creatives may espouse politically correct views, but the effect of Florida’s policy approach, notes Tulane sociologist Richard Campanella, often undermine ethnic communities. As they enter the city, creatives push up rents, displacing local stores and residents. In his own neighborhood of Bywater, in New Orleans, the black population declined by 64 percent between 2000 and 2010, while the white population increased by 22 percent.
In the process, Campanella notes, much of what made the neighborhood unique has been lost as the creatives replace the local culture with the increasingly predictable, and portable, “hip cool” trendy restaurants, offering beet-filled ravioli instead of fried okra, and organic markets. The “unique” amenities you find now, even in New Orleans, he reports, are much what you’d expect in any other hipster paradise, be it Portland, Seattle, Burlington, Vermont or Williamsburg.

The very people whom Urban Creative Hipster Centers must please simply can not do without the very people they so detest - the middle class breeders of all races.  The Creative and Hip cannot fix a sink, a time for an appointment, much less a government official.  The helots who go to the precinct captain in order to tidy up a playground are scorned by the Creative Secular Urban Dweller as thoroughly unevolved.  That is why a hard-hitting newspaper series on corruption tracks the misadventures of some poor slob who takes the odd nap on his shovel and ignores the Global Inbred Corruption of a CTA President who could not tell you how MPG a bus gets, let alone start one who manages to finesse editorial boards into ignore the roots of Bombardier/Ventra scams.

The PLAN is working to make Chicago an Urban Center, but Urban Centers don't work.

"Where are the kids from Amos Alonzo Stagg Elementary supposed to go to school?"  Not in the PLAN that is for sure.

Rahm's "Start-Up" City Plan for Chicago - Fresh Air in a Can?

Mayor Emanuel with the electoral losers on Carol Marin's Crone Circle WTTW-Chicago. I mean Chicago Tonight . . .and every night.

So, Mayor Emanuel is making Chicago Start Up City?  What is that?  A Real 'fix-er-up' for first time home buyers? Nope.  We have enough Stans, Cliffords, Ignatios, Mikes, Stellas, Beullas, Dotties, Gerts, and Kareems and it seems Rahm and the Smart-Sized Set of Urban planners want them the Hell out of the City limits between the hours of 7 P.M. and 5 A.M. and welcome scores of  Calis, Hadleys, Khloe's, Myas' Paisleys, Chens, Daxes, Jaxes. Kians, Kylans and Lennons with math and techn-dweeb credentials to make non toxic, expensive, digitally non-essential services and goods for disposable incomes.

Last year, 50 outstanding seniors from schools in Illinois and seven Midwest state were invited to Chicago for an action-packed weekend that mixed business and fun.
They visited Chicago businesses and firms with offices here, such as Groupon, Google, Grubhub, Microsoft and Accenture, to learn about job opportunities.
They attended panel discussions with industry leaders on topics ranging from innovation and tech entrepreneurship to how to start a career in Chicago.
The seniors even sampled Chicago’s rich cultural institutions and pulsating night life and got passes to Chicago Ideas Week, a seven-day event featuring marquee speakers and interactive sessions that Emanuel and Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell hope will someday take its place among the best known idea symposiums in the nation.

Kewell!  I mean Cool, I mean Brad Keywell. Group on!!!!!!!!!  At what cost and to whom? This dramatic and historical boondoggle was announced at 1871 -Remember?  Chicago Fire? Random Big Blaze the Micks started?  Dying Embers and all that? Of Course one might, if of course one is not graduate of Chicago Public Schools.

1871—(1) catalyzing moment in Chicago history, when the most brilliantengineers,
architects and inventors came together to build a new city; (2)where Chicago’s brightest digital designers, engineers and entrepreneursare shaping new technologies, disrupting old business models
andresetting the boundaries of what’s possible 

This year, ThinkChicago will double—to 100 students—with half the slots reserved for outstanding juniors and seniors from the University of Illinois.Emanuel made the announcement at 1871, a new start-up center at the Merchandise Mart that helps connect entrepreneurs to would-be investors, mentors, partners and peers.He noted that there is “an energy” in Chicago today that “did not exist” when Groupon was starting out.“Remember You Tube? Pay Pal? They started here, but they thought they had to get to the coast. If those companies were around today in this type of venture position, they would not have to go to the coast.They would have all the pieces: talent, capital and innovation,” Emanuel said.“We have over a thousand digital tech companies now in the city of Chicago. 128 start-ups launched in Chicago last year alone. Our venture capital--$1 billion—is up 50 percent. That’s in just a year. There is a new energy. The Second City is becoming the Start-Up City. That’s our goal.” 

Who is the WE in that OUR?  Let's begin with thinkchicago.org/. Click the old mouse-eroo and . . .

The page you were looking for doesn't exist.

                           You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved.


Shucks, you can not find any information on that source launched August 3, 2011.  Totally . . . expunged.  You can find Congressman Jesse Jackson easier than info on ThinkChicago.org.
A digital Solyndra Mayhaps?


Groupon's site is Oooops, Down! as well.

http://www.groupon.com/chicago

By Gad those kids are smart fellers! or is it the other way around? Random Irony, Dude.


Ironically enough, and the Smart-sized Urban Center Chicago denizens of the future like Kali and Dax love irony, Chicago's owned Crone Columnist Carol Marin has another heart-tugging-Where-in-the Hell -is  Carol- Going -with-this-One, yarn about laid-off janitors and the smart sizing of Chicago.  

Fifty Chicago janitors lost their jobs this week.. . .They all lost their jobs because the City of Chicago, which long ago privatized much of its janitorial work to outside firms, rebid its janitorial contracts. And 20 percent of the new contract, unlike the old one, went to a nonunion firm called Dayspring, a minority- and woman-owned company in South Holland.
Dayspring, while promising to pay the prevailing rates for janitorial work, is under no obligation to keep the current employees. And by hiring new workers at entry-level wages and turning some full-time work into part-time work, they can save money and charge the city less.
Is there a villain in this story? It’s not that simple.
In a wretched economy with state and local governments drowning in red ink, city procurement officer Jamie Rhee said, “As stewards of taxpayer money, we put out the bid to get the best price for the city. We keep it open and competitive. . . . [There are] tough choices . . . to make sure the city is on a sustainable financial track.”
The new, nonunion company that got the bid argues it shouldn’t be cast as a villain either.
“I know you have to report this story,” said Dayspring owner Anita Harris, “but this is a dream for us. Talk about small businesses growing. . . . We are not doing a bad thing, we are doing a good thing.”
SEIU contends that with this new contract, the city is trying to kill the union.

SEIU created the Union Busting, Carol!  Rahm is an SEIU, Dude! So is Forrest Claypool who times the pee-break for Rahm's CTA.  So is Pat Quinn. So is Jan Schakowsky. So is Wee Mike Quigley. So is President Obama.  SEIU will be fine - remember they are now "organizing the unemployed." This City layoff of janitors is only the itching sensation - the real bleeding is yet to Garbage Grid & etc. Carol's cynical Boo-Hoos for the laid off Chicago 50 rings way hollow, as there has not been a Progressive boon-doggle to come down the pike that she has not lapped up with gusto.


During the early days of WWII, Mayor Ed Kelly was as tight as a tick with FDR.  Rahm and President Obama more than likely exchange tighty whities they are that close.  Ed Kelly got General Motors to build a massive series of plants on the south west side to build engines and components for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Immediately, 17,000 people went to work.  General Electric owns a huge part of the Obama Regime, just saying.  President Obama made General Motors a part of the Obama Regime, while Mayor Rahm was Chief of Staff.  Now, get this - Boeing is headquartered in Chicago . . .honor bright!  Here is the beauty part - the CEO of Being is James McNereny.  Guess what?  Mr. McNereny is an Almnus of New Trier High School - the alma mater of Mayor Rahm. Not only that, but also this, James McNereny is reported to be a huge Obama and Rahm money dropper and a member of the Mayor's inner-circle.


Those nuggets plucked from the stream of consciousness - would one not venture a notion that were Rahm, or SEIU, or Carol, in any way, shape or form inclined to really, really, really make a difference to the people of Chicago by way  getting Boeing, GM, GE, or any huge, established captialist on-going concern, just might . . .might mind you . . .bend an interested ear or two and invest?  Hmmm?

Silly Goose Island goslings!  A corporate possiblity such as industrial opportunity for skilled, educated and work-ethical people is not in the Urban Center "Start-up" Plans of Rahm Regime.

Stan and Stella over by Ford City -pack your bags and call Mayflower,

Dax and Kia, down in Urbana - hook up the UHaul and get thee to Bucktown.  Rahm is calling the White House for some investment capital, Kids! Not only that, you can fire up some quality weed without a trip to the Bridewell.

Invest now has come to mean taxes, after all.

Naw, we have our supine Media doing hand-stands and Huzzahs over nothing in a sweet, random package.

FORD CITY* has space aplenty and Chicago is already packed with smart, practiced, skilled and willing workers. The problem is - one can point out the piles of horse-shit cast upon our ground, but it takes genuine human effort to refrain from rolling around in it.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/13489965-418/mayor-intent-on-making-chicago-a-start-up-city.html
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/10537450-418/rahms-inner-circle.html

http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/13481481-452/delicate-balance-city-budget-workers-lives.html
http://www.1871.com/2012/05/opening-day-for-1871/


By the Way FORD CITY:

Construction started in 1942. The purpose for construction was to build a defense plant. Approximately 17,000 workers were employed. This caused the southwest side of the city to become more populated as more people were moving there for work. By October, Building No. 1 was finished. Testing of aircraft engines to be used for the B29 bomber began. Throughout the winter, they continued building. By the spring of 1943, 10 buildings, made of steel, concrete and wood, had been constructed. The building covered approximately 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m²). The largest building was Building No. 4. It covered 62 acres (250,000 m²), and it was built out of reinforced concrete. The plant consisted of 7,000 miles (11,000 km) of underground piping and 15 miles (24 km) of cables and wires for water and power.

By December 1945, the building was left vacant due to the end of the war. The government attempted to sell it without success. It was later retrofitted for automobile production for Tucker Corporation and then Ford Motor Company.

The building remained a white elephant until the Korean War, when it was reopened to build airplane engines for the war effort, under contract from Ford Motor Company. The Ford company modernized everything inside the building, employing nearly 12,000 people. The building closed again in 1959.

In 1961, the government sold it to Harry F Chaddick, along with other Chicagoans. They had a vision for the greatest commerce center in Chicago. Some buildings were torn down to make room for parking lots. The buildings that remained were remodeled to attract retail tenants.^[2]

Developers divided the building into a separate portion for the mall. The mall opened in 1965 as Ford City.^[3] The mall consists of two halves - a strip mall and enclosed mall. The strip mall portion is connected to the enclosed mall by a tunnel called "The Connection". It utilizes the basement between the severed halves of the buildings directly below the parking lot. The Connection was originally called Peacock Alley from the late 60s through some time in the 1980s. Wieboldt's occupied the western-facing space until 1987 when Carson Pirie Scott moved in. The southern-facing space was last occupied by Montgomery Ward until that chain's bankruptcy. JCPenney occupies the eastern facing space.

Until February 2008, the mall was managed by General Growth Properties Inc. for a private investment company.^[4] The Mall is now managed by Jones Lang LaSalle.

In 2009-2010, Ford City Mall began a multi-million dollar long term capital redevelopment program undertaking North Mall infrastructure work, Cicero Avenue frontage and North Mall parking lot resurfacing. During this time new tenants such as Conway’s, US Cellular, Rodeo, Amici, Star Diamond Jewelers, a new GNC, She Bar, Eldorado Fine Jewelers, Avon, China Max, US Sprint and others opened for business at Ford City Mall.

Early 2011 – Phase 2 of the long term capital redevelopment plan began with refurbishment of the Cicero Avenue Pylon signs enabling large square footage use tenants the ability to gain maximum store signage exposure along the heavily trafficked Cicero Avenue roadway.

As part of the 2011 capital redevelopment program, Ford City Mall is in the process of demolishing several small outparcel buildings and a former vacant anchor store, leading the way to future development options under discussion at this time.

[edit]Transportation

[edit]CTA Buses

• #54B South Cicero
• #67 67th/69th/71st
• #79 79th

[edit]Pace Buses

• #379 Midway-Orland Square
• #382 Central/Clearing
• #383 South Cicero
• #384 Narragansett/Ridgeland
• #385 87th/111th/127th

[edit]Orange Line Extension

Original plans for the Orange Line was called for the terminus to be at Ford City. Due to lack of funding the city decided to end the line at Midway with a layout allowing for future expansion.^[5] The CTA recently undertook an Alternatives Analysis for the Orange Line extension to Ford City and determined that the project currently stands at an estimated $200 million.^[6] On August 12, 2009, the CTA approved the extension plans.^[7] The extension will open in 2016.

Ward Power, Accountability and Future - Recycled With Rahm

" Alpha Mike Foxtrot, Breeders! Vote Democratic! Thanks for Playing!"


Mayor Rahm Emanuel today said the remaining 340,000 Chicago households that don’t have curbside recycling will get it by the end of 2013. Hip, Hip, Hipster* Hooray! Soon the Breeders will leave! Breeders are the people in the neighborhoods - lower middle class taxpayers who own homes and have children. They do not have disposable income. They have recycled income - debts, mortgages, Catholic school tuition and taxes - lots and lots of taxes.

For the past year, this simple, humble and damn fine looking reader and writer has posted on the once looming and now attached Garbage Grid and the its end-game.

The administration says it can afford to expand the recycling program because pickup has become more efficient in the six months since two private firms started competing with city crews . . .

The Garbage Grid is all the rage - ask Detroit, Buffalo and Cleveland. This is plan that divides city services ( snow-plowing, tree-trimming, garbage collection and, of course, the Sierra Club's Raison d'uriner dans son pantalon, Recycling) by a geographic grid, where once a Ward Boss controlled, directed and dispensed services. You see, Chicago's Charter gave us a weak Mayor form of urban government, whereby the City Council, aldermen, really governed and the May'r appointed heads of departments. One might think it were t'other way around. T'aint.

April 1st, April Fools Day, was the launch of the garbage grid which the 50 lambs of the City Council offered up themselves to Rahm -the boss of this here Sanhedrin - knifing and holocaust ( Old Timey Barbecue) to follow.

Yesterday's announcement that more Wards will have curb-side re-cycling soon was met with Yeas! Chicago media is as pliant and bending-of-will as all 50 endangered Chicago aldermen.

The endgame is the shrinking of Chicago from a city of neighborhoods to an Urban Center - when the population leaves the neighborhoods due to crime, poverty, poor city services and schools, there in lies the opportunity to smart-size everything down to an urban center - green open-spaces for walking,biking, capering, stolling, mincing and hand-holding among the magnificent gardens and tree-scapes, great non-smelly public transportation to and from business to townhouse, condo, loft, rehabilitated stone crafted buildings, entertainment, and life-style happy venues. Not a beer-belly in sight!

This will be a pricey Urban Center and it already happens to be, but if one can afford such a Utopia, and the better folks certainly will, who cares? We get Blue Recycling Dumpsters! Finally!


Though the costs for city crews to pick up recycling are still greater than 50 cents more per bin than Waste Management and Metal Management Midwest, Emanuel left open the possibility that he will continue to split recycling duties in Chicago between public and private crews for the foreseeable future.

"What will happen, every six months (Streets and Sanitation Commissioner) Tom (Byrne) and his team will evaluate this, and then at one point, if somebody brings down the price even further, we'll rip that band-aid off," Emanuel said. "That's why I want to keep competition in place."


Following this swell trade off of neighborhood autonomy by the aldermen we elected, the guys on the Blue Trucks will smarten up their CVs. Mick, Steve, Hector, Swede, Sticky, Madison and Headsy will no longer manage our waste, plow our streets of snow, trim our parkway trees, or fix the sewer lines 35 ft. from our ejector lines.

They will have sold their Raised Ranches Cape Cods and Georgians and moved on to Peotone, Manhattan, and Custer Park swelling the populations of Will and Kankakee Counties, because Waste Management and Metal Management will have smart sized Streets and Sanitation into an exhibit at the Field Museum.

The Chicago Phonebook will now be found in the Lists provided by Craine's Chicago Business -Top CEO's, Top Lawyers, Top Doctors, Top Community Activists, Top Donors Forum 500, Top Sports Figures, Top Billies - Corgan and Dec.

I imagine, cynical old bastard I be, that Waste Management and Metal Management have already made a verbal, or at least a twitched, agreement to bundle the Rahm 2016 Presidential Campaign. How could I even think that?

The two private firms have served roughly half of the 241,000 Chicago households already in the recycling program and the city has handled the rest.


History.

Once Ward Autonomy is gone as political and historical memory, the neighbors and breeders can just bugger off and like it.


* From the Tribune articles comments - Reads like David Axelrod parade of Grassrooters:

Thank you Mayor Emanuel for the hard work on this important service. Besides saving millions of tons of recyclabe waste form landfills when children in families get used to recycling in the bin it sets a mind for life on environmental mindfulness. We win in so many ways.

Privatize the entire operation. It will be cheaper. Wast Mangement picks up my recycling. One person is on the truck and he does everyting. The city has 2-3 on a truck. Waste Management drivers make less than the political hack city drivers and no pension costs. The the bankrupt city can lay off the policital hacks and save a lot of money. They will probably be moved to other job with higher pay and less work.

When will the city change regular trash pick from a ward by ward map to a grid system that could save the cuty $30 million a year?? The mayor is always crying that the city is strapped for cash, here is a simple solution that is easy to impliment that saves millions

This is the Jewel in this Crown of Thorns!

speaker, we can't have random people coming into the ward yards. they could trip and fall, get hurt and sue the city.

on the other hand, what a great idea for oh, waht 6 - 8 more ward jobs. good union men to assist the citizens of our wards with their recycling. this assistance given as a distraction so ya don't notice the 15 - 20 union city employees sitting around playing cards, bbq'ing, have a few beers with the game on tv.

April 1, 2012 - City Garbage Collection Grid Begins - Say Goodbye to Ward Accountability

Last year, while choking on Mayoral Election Hopes and Dreams ( all came true BTW), WTTW - Chicago's Window to Taking Whatever ?- the garbage collection debate snored through the Chicago City Council and onto Chicago Tonight.

While Chicago debates the decision to privatize recycling, Chicago Tonight takes a look at what other major cities across the U.S. are doing to ensure that their recyclables are picked up:

San Francisco: The city of San Francisco has partnered with private company Recology to provide curbside removal of recycling, trash and compostable material in three different bins. Residents pay Recology directly for their services. Ordinances passed in San Francisco make it mandatory for the city to recycle 75 percent of all waste after 2010 and 100 percent by 2020.

Los Angeles: According to their website, the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation collects over 240,000 tons of recyclables annually. The city operates the largest residential curbside recycling program in the United States, offering services to 530,000 single family homes and 220,000 small multi-family units. In 2009, Waste & Recycling News reported that Los Angeles had the highest recycling rate out of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

New York City: The city Department of Sanitation Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling runs New York’s recycling program. They offer services ranging from curbside collection to leaf and Christmas tree collection, as well as chlorofluorocarbon (C.F.C.) evacuation. While most businesses in New York use a private recycling company for their waste, the city collects between 366,000 and 423,000 tons of mixed paper recyclables per year from residents alone. In 2009, Waste & Recycling News reported that New York’s recycling rate ranked third out of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

Indianapolis: The Department of Public Works will remove curbside recycling for a monthly fee that residents may pay, or they may drop off their own recyclables at locations all over the city. Private recycling company Abitibi Bowater collects paper at many local grocery stores and donates some of the proceeds to a tree-planting fund in Marion County, Indiana.

Houston: The Solid Waste Management Department offers curbside and automated recycling, as well as removal of yard waste in compostable bags. According to their website, 19,000 homes participate in the curbside recycling program, and an additional 70,000 homes receive curbside recycling service from automated vehicles. In 2009, Waste & Recycling News reported that Houston’s recycling rate ranked ninth out of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

Seattle: The city of Seattle organizes free curbside recycling for its residents, with pickup every other week. By law, recyclable items like glass bottles and paper are forbidden from being part of garbage removal. Larger recyclable items like tires and yard waste may be dropped off at sites around Seattle.


Portland: The city Bureau of Planning and Sustainability hired 20 different waste removal companies for curbside recycling service. The city sets the fee per pickup, and each resident is given a green cart for yard waste and a blue cart for recyclable materials.

For more information on Chicago’s recycling history, check out the Chicago Recycling Coalition’s website.

Would you pay a monthly fee for citywide recycling? Sound off on our discussion board!

You see Chicago is a big city and we can't have that, no, no, no.

Chicago is so much a mirror of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York and yes, dare we say it, Indianapolis. Look at our Golden Gate! Gander in awe at the Fjords and Tall Timbers! Gape like Barbary Apes at our island communities, Borough by Borough!

Chicago's urban sprawl takes in . . .neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are where breeeders and their disgusting children live. These Breeders operate all of those City of Chicago Department big blue garbage trucks, water services, and street repair vehicles. These Breeders share neighborhoods with cops, firemen, white-collar City, County, State and Federal office workers, teachers, nurses and those skilled tradesmen who make $20 an hour.

WTTW wants Chicago to be a Big Bean Ci. . . Urban Center. Pritzker Parkways and Lettuce Entertain You Trains! Symphony Centers and BikePaths Forward! Stopping progress are Chicago's neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are not Communities. Communities are geographical land masses dependent upon government largesse (Somebody else's money), grants, TIFS, and T-shirt give-aways. Neighborhoods are toxic to Urban Centers.

Neighborhoods are places where Planned Parenthood does not take hold. The key to Chicago's evolutionary path to Urban Center Citizenship requires that Breeders and their spawn depart for . . .anywhere else. The rub, is that the Breeders are paying the taxings on their properties and everything else because they have jobs with the City, County, State and to some extent the Federal government.

These other urban centers know that the key to becoming an urban center is the route taken by garbage collection.

Take garbage out of the City's Wards and watch the Breeders depart.

This April Fools Day is the beginning of Garbage Grid Chicago. This April Fools Day, ask your Alderman about the Garbage Collection Grid. Ask exactly how long before the lay-offs of all of the Blue Truck Breeders and jolly Snow Plow Men. Will laid off City Streets and Sanitation people be 'absorbed' into Waste Management?

I'll bet he will say, "Hey, not my problem anymore."

Rahm's Residency Rules -You Stay As Long as There's a Nickel To Be Squeezed Out of You Helots; Only Then You May Go

Inspector General Joe Ferguson, in a report issued this week, said the city's residency requirement makes no exceptions.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has received criticism for allowing the chief administrative officer of the Chicago Public Schools to live in Winnetka for the next two years because of his reluctance to pull his adopted daughter out of her school.

Joe -Well, maybe this one time for an appointee -after all the kid goes to school in Winnetka - he's not a cop, teacher or fireman for Crissakes.

Rahm - Let's Change the Subject! Call the Water Boy! Tell Eric I need three or four residency shout-outs!


The Garbage Grid is the tip of the spear and the upcoming raised water rates is merely the dagger to the short ribs. When you can't breathe, you can't fight back.

Chicago and Cook County has turned the keys over to the progressives.

The Middle Class Tax Base must stay, for immediate future, because it must pay for planned Urban Center Chicago - the playground for the elites. If you own a home, have kids, attend church services, cut your own grass, rake your lawn, keep an eye on your neighbors' kids, call-in crimes, take food to suffering and wonder how long you can keep up with the mounting expenses and the glaciers of bullshit from politicians and the news media, you are not an elite.

Cops, Firemen, Streets and Sanitation Workers, Skilled Tradesmen, Clerks, Accountants, and necessary worker bees for the City of Chicago must reside within the City Limits . . .for now.

Progressive Career ASSholes*, like Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will call her media pals and publicly humiliate and lay off hundreds of County janitors and then purchase more land for CC Forest Preserves. She'll call her media pals again and publicly humiliate and fire a family man from his County job, because he did not vote for Joy Cunningham's desire to be an Illinois Supreme Court Justice. Make sense?

Career A$$holes, like Forrest Claypool, will cut bathroom breaks and then whine about union rules for bus drivers and CTA train drivers, as if those decades-old benefits sprouted up like some magic Carbondale mushrooms and then continue to build his own pension cash mountains by dint of insider appointments, because the chinless jerk can't get himself elected.

Give me an honest, hard-working thief any day, over these Career A$$holes.

Huge lay-offs are coming and soon. The County and the City of Chicago will lay off the last of the Helots in the coming months and years.

What happens to the Shakman Empire when that happens? Mike gonna strike tents?

That's all down the road. There's more to do!

The Aldermen of the City Council will have gelded themselves, the Wards will be Smart-sized and the population of the City will continue its diaspora to Will, Du page, and Lake Counties. The poor are Section 8'd to the collar suburbs and the middle class will follow shortly, once every possible nickel can be squeezed out the pockets of people in the neighborhoods.

That's the plan, Stan! In a few years, Joe Ferguson, or his clone, will announce that it is just ducky for City employees to hit the trail.

The Progressive Triumph of Will shall be celebrated in the Green, Childless Chicago Urban Center. Garbage and Water, Kids.

* Progressive Career A$$holes can be identified as a person or persons whom breathless idiots term "Ain't He/She Great?" There is never a scintilla proof on the claim, however; thus "Forrest Claypool did a great job with the Chicago Parks District." How and What? Explain, please. "Well, he just did. He's an outsider and a Reformer. What are you some Right Wing Nut? He's Great! Great I tells You!"

The Career A$$hole makes broad and frequent use of Chicago's Iconic Columnists and The Career A$$holes Media Organ -Channel 11 WTTW & WBEZ ( Count the Times a Non Career A$$hole is the featured focus, or a guest - unless being targeted for take-down or abuse. WTTW will invariably do a Progressive Policy Pile -On the target for today, like last week's Eddie Arruza and Forrest Claypool shout-down of CTA Union President Bob Kelly.

http://discussions.chicagotribune.com/20/chinews/chi-cook-county-forest-preserve-looking-to-buy-land-20111026/10