The Cubs finally caught on: there’s talent ripe for the picking in Latin America. Now that their efforts to cultivate it are paying off, respectability may be just around the corner.
Author Archives: Robert Heuer
Posted inNews & Politics
Runway Inflation
Ignoring history, viable alternatives, and common sense, the people pushing for an airport in Peotone are dragging us all into their fantasy world.
Posted inNews & Politics
Pate’s Tollway (Heavy Toll, part two)
The trial of former tollway boss Robert Hickman provided a rare glimpse inside this $350-million-a-year patronage empire.
Posted inNews & Politics
Heavy Toll
As head of the tollway system Robert Hickman had power, influence, and lots of friends. Then he was accused of abusing his position, in a bizarre case that exposed the inner workings of a 40-year patronage empire. Hickman went to jail. His crime? Good que
Posted inArts & Culture
Lecture Notes: payback time for the ‘burbs
Minnesota state representative Myron Orfield is America’s leading proponent of “metropolitics,” a strategy to persuade suburbs to take more responsibility for urban decay. The 32-year-old, second-term Democratic lawmaker has pursued measures for fair housing, property-tax sharing, and urban reinvestment by convincing blue-collar, inner-ring suburbs to align themselves with Minneapolis and Saint Paul rather than the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Circuit Rider
Taking the bus was Bill Wendt’s only way to get to Schaumburg on a recent Tuesday night. This near-west-sider is car-free and didn’t think it made sense to traverse the 25 miles on his one-speed bicycle. Wendt had called me the previous week and, in his usual style, gotten right to the point: the Schaumburg […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Daley’s Tree Thing
In the July 29 Letters, a City Hall spokesman doubts Ben Joravsky’s statement–in a July 15 Neighborhood News story about a citizen exposing the damage that asphalt machines inflict on trees–that “‘many’ environmentalists disparage Mayor Daley’s tree-planting efforts.” Terry Levin, the Streets and San man at the spin doctor wheel, is entitled to an opinion, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Path of Progress
While gangs make peace, the development industry makes trouble.
Posted inNews & Politics
Churches and charity: why don’t foundations donate?
“Does anybody know on what principle police in this city are allocated?” Rabbi Arnold Wolf of Hyde Park’s K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Congregation asked, scanning a crowd assembled in the basement of the Fourth Presbyterian Church. The 50 people in attendance–many clergy and a few foundation staff members–sat at tables strung together in a U shape. […]