Chicago

Chicago’s Divvy bike-sharing program costing taxpayers big

By Brian Costin
08/22/2013
Divvy bike stations are expanding throughout Chicago, offering riders low membership costs and 24-hour rental fees. But this multimillion-dollar project is bringing in only a fraction of the money necessary to fund it. Last year, the city of Chicago announced a controversial $65 million contract with ALTA Bicycle Share to operate a 4,000 bicycle bike-share program in...

TAGS: Chicago, Divvy

Chicago’s latest money grab: 300 speed cameras could generate up to $4.3 billion in fines from local motorists

08/21/2013
Cash-strapped Chicago is about to get an injection of money from motorists. The city is installing its controversial speed cameras at four neighborhood parks on Monday, and has plans for eight additional locations in the next few months. The city announced the results from a test of the new technology that showed surprising results. During a December trial,...

TAGS: Chicago, speed cameras

Parents and students lost in the CPS struggle over power and money

08/20/2013
When Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, unveiled its list of 50 schools to be closed this past summer, Chicago Teachers Union, or CTU, President Karen Lewis acted as if the union she leads was a victim of the city’s $1 billion deficit — not a willing accomplice in its creation. Lewis will probably never say...

Brady proposes voucher plan for displaced CPS students

08/20/2013
The parents of the 30,000 displaced Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, students’ who will be attending new schools this fall are worried about their children’s futures. These fears are reasonable – what parent wouldn’t we be concerned about having their child walk to school along a Safe Passage route that was recently the scene of...

Moody’s credit downgrades: Illinois, Chicago area, take beating

08/19/2013
The recent string of credit downgrades by Moody’s Investors Service should leave little doubt what the rating agency thinks of Illinois’ worsening fiscal crisis. For the past few years the state’s five state-run pension funds have garnered most of the negative attention in Illinois. Moody’s has already designated Illinois’ debt as the riskiest of any...

TAGS: Chicago, downgrade

Cook County’s debt downgraded: pension liabilities double under Moody’s new methodology

By Ted Dabrowski
08/17/2013
Chicago’s fiscal crisis just got worse. Last month, the city received a rare triple-notch downgrade from Moody’s Investors Service, to A3 from Aa3.  Now, Chicago’s parent government, Cook County, has received a downgrade of its own. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Cook County’s general obligation bond rating to A1 from Aa3 due to the county’s “growing...

TAGS: Chicago, Cook County, downgrade

Burgerbot: Fast food chains can cut costs by using new technology

By Paul Kersey
08/15/2013
Recently, unions have been encouraging fast food workers to hold out for a $15 an hour wage in Chicago and other cities. Proponents have argued that fast food employees deserve more than they have been getting, and that the pay boost will improve the economy. But if they succeed, a different effect could take place: the...

TAGS: Fight for 15, minimum wage

How Detroit’s collapse hurt Detroit Public Schools – a lesson for Chicago

08/13/2013
In the wake of the Detroit bankruptcy, the media have paid a lot of attention to the effects of Detroit’s massive population loss – increased corruption, ineffective public safety and an unsustainable pension system, to name a few. But among the hundreds of articles written about the city after it declared bankruptcy, no one has...

Devil’s Night

By Paul Kersey
08/13/2013
I grew up in Detroit, and as far back as I can remember my hometown was in trouble. But if there was a time when people just gave up on the place, it was probably October 30, 1984 — just a couple weeks after the Tigers won the World Series — when fires on “Devil’s...

TAGS: Detroit

Chicago tied for the third-lowest rate of entrepreneurship among major US cities

By Benjamin VanMetre
08/12/2013
As the Detroit bankruptcy unfolds, the attention has started to shift to other big cities such as Chicago. Detroit and Chicago differ in countless ways, but regardless of the disparities, one unfortunate characteristic is shared by both: they’ve been successful in scaring away entrepreneurs. Between 2010 and 2012, Detroit was tied with Philadelphia for dead...