Facebook claims its new cryptocurrency will bring financial inclusion and opportunity to billions, pushing cash further to the fringes. Is that a good thing?
Perspectives: The Powers That Be
Where will the jobs go? Next chapter in Lincoln Yards saga offers few answers
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With a new mayor and a lawsuit challenging the Lincoln Yards TIF, basic questions about the future of the industrial corridor may be open again.
Economic Development
Target opens stores in younger, wealthier, white neighborhoods as it pulls out of South Side
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Protests are planned for Black Friday in response to retailer closing two South Side locations.
Economic Development
Alternative energy scams hit poor blacks and Latinos the hardest, complaints show
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Thousands are misled into switching suppliers in the hopes of saving money but instead see their utility bills spike, sometimes driving them into debt.
Perspectives: The Powers That Be
From police to schools to transit, a crisis of accountability in Chicago
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As Rahm Emanuel courts flashy projects amid a slew of scandals, it seems the mayor is more accountable to big-money donors than to neighborhood constituents.
Perspectives
Worker-owned co-ops: a model to build wealth for low-income communities in Chicago
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Illinois law stops worker-owned cooperatives from being established as businesses in Chicago, a city ripe to join the national movement to democratize local economies.
Perspectives: The Powers That Be
Community benefits coalition wants to include all the players, not just Obama Foundation
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Organizers aim to avert gentrification brought on by the Obama library through an ordinance that would require the city and the University of Chicago to protect and support nearby residents.
Perspectives
Fifty years later, what the Kerner report tells us about race in Chicago today
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Many of the city’s racial disparities in 2018 are all too similar to those of 1968, when a federal commission analyzed the causes of racial tensions in cities across the country.
Black History Month
Black America’s distrust of banks rooted in Reconstruction
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The failure of the Freedman’s Bank caused many recently emancipated African-Americans to lose their savings.
Perspectives
Harold Washington’s legacy provided touchstones for progressive politics
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Washington died not long after winning control of the City Council and re-election. Despite the political challenges he faced, his accomplishments pointed the way toward a more inclusive and fiscally sound Chicago.
Economic Development
Obama library heightens debate over promise and peril of development
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Given Woodlawn’s history, neighborhood organizers want to ensure the presidential center will benefit black residents, not displace them.