Urban planner Pete Saunders, a Detroit native and Chicago resident, doesn't see many similarities between the two cities:
Chicago has a much larger and more diverse economy to draw from to address its debt concerns. A report from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis released in February shows that Chicago metro area GDP in 2011 was $548 billion annually, making it the third largest in the nation after New York and Los Angeles. That makes the Chicago economy nearly three times larger than Detroit's, which checks in at $199 billion. Chicago's economy is also more diverse than Detroit's, with no one industry sector making up more than 13 percent of the metro area workforce. Chicago's economy also enjoys demonstrated strengths in areas where Detroit is weaker — specifically, finance, transportation and warehousing, and education. There is simply a broader and deeper reservoir that Chicago can tap.
Perhaps more important, there are key historical differences that led Detroit to bankruptcy but kept Chicago on a growth path. Circa 1950, Chicago and Detroit were mid-century manufacturing doppelgangers — economic powerhouses teeming with industrial businesses, each with a bevy of skilled and unskilled workers to employ. However, governance differences caused their paths to diverge. Mayor Richard J. Daley is often remembered as the quintessential machine politician, but he cut his political teeth in fiscal policy before occupying the fifth floor at City Hall. He put that expertise to good use while in office. Also, the dozens of municipal corporations and special-purpose districts here, lacking in Detroit, meant the fiscal burden could be spread around. As a result, City Hall ends up having fewer direct responsibilities and a slightly rosier fiscal picture.
When Detroit doubled down on flinging its population into the suburbs in the last half of the 20th century, Chicago cleaned up. I remember the smog, dirt, and crime of the 1980s vividly—and the stunning clean-up in the 1990s. During the same time, Detroit emptied out even more.
Detroit shows just about ever method available for killing a city; Chicago shows the opposite. Urbs in horto is a reality.
Crain's takes a look at how concealed carry affects private property:
Building owners have the authority to prohibit people from entering their property with a concealed firearm. To exercise this right, building owners “must post a sign . . . indicating that firearms are prohibited on the property.” Signs that say the carrying of firearms is prohibited must be “clearly and conspicuously posted” at the entrance of a building, premises or property where it is prohibited. The Illinois State Police is charged with adopting rules and standards for these signs. Building owners should also consider the implications of posting signs. If they prohibit firearms and then do not enforce the rules, are they opening themselves up to additional liability?
Do landlords want to prohibit the concealed carrying of firearms on their property and in their buildings? If they do, then they should consider what policies to adopt and where to post the signage to prohibit it. Landlords should review their standard lease rules and regulations to ensure that they implement the concealed carry policies. Even though Illinois is the last state to permit concealed carry of firearms, the new law may be a good opportunity to review standard lease provisions in other states.
The author also talks about how the new law affects bars and third-party property managers.
But think about this: in one of the most advanced countries in the world, in the 21st century, we have to put up signs to prohibit armed people from entering. You know, I recognize the necessity of having armed police on the streets. I submit that allowing everyone else to carry guns will make us less safe, both from the guns and from the police response to having more guns around.
Welcome back, 19th Century.
Not directly, but probably yes:
As late as 2005 or 2006 — that is, until the eve of the Great Recession — you could argue that there wasn’t a whole lot of difference in aggregate performance between greater Pittsburgh and greater Detroit. Obviously, however, Detroit’s central city has collapsed while Pittsburgh has had at least something of a revival. The difference is really clear in the Brookings job sprawl data (pdf), where less than a quarter of Detroit jobs are within 10 miles of the traditional central business district, versus more than half in Pittsburgh.
It’s hard to avoid the sense that greater Pittsburgh, by taking better care of its core, also improved its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. In that sense, Detroit’s disaster isn’t just about industrial decline; it’s about urban decline, which isn’t the same thing. If you like, sprawl killed Detroit, by depriving it of the kind of environment that could incubate new sources of prosperity.
The New Republic weighed in with five startling maps that show exactly what happened along five key metrics. Over 20 years, the city lost 60% of its population (even while its suburbs increased theirs), and only the poorest people seem to have stayed, driving down the city's income at an even faster rate. With fixed infrastructure to support 1.8 million residents, the remaining 700,000 can't generate enough tax receipts to fund the city's commitments. Bankruptcy was inevitable given these circumstances.
Lots of things killed Detroit, but most of these things were policies and decisions that favored wealthy, white suburbanites over poorer, black city dwellers.
Two weeks ago, I described my experience zipping through SFO's security lines. Because I have elite status on American Airlines and because I'm in the CBP's Global Entry program, I qualified automatically for TSA PreCheck.
Yesterday, TSA administrator John Pistole announced that now, any U.S. citizen traveler can apply:
Until now, travelers could only apply to use PreCheck if they were members of certain airline frequent flier programs or were enrolled in "trusted traveler" programs with the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
The expansion is part of the TSA's efforts to focus more attention on high-risk travelers and cut back on the screening time spent on frequent travelers.
Travelers who pay the $85 must submit to fingerprinting and a background check. Applicants who are cleared by the TSA are enrolled to use the PreCheck lines for five years.
I'd say it's worth $85 to get through security lines at speeds not seen since the last century.
Anyone who's paid attention to this blog knows I've gone to most of the ballparks in the country, Wrigley Field most often. As much as I love the place, Wrigley's age shows. I mean, poles, for crying out loud.
So, OK, the park needs some freshening, but on the inside. It does not need all this crap.
Yesterday, I and all the other fans of the park lost that fight: the pliant Chicago Plan Commission approved Tom Ricketts' renovation plan after a late-hour capitulation from 44th Ward alderman Tom Tunney:
With a unanimous vote at a hearing this afternoon, the Plan Commission moved the Cubs past one of the final hurdles before the entire project heads to the City Council for a vote, which could be on July 24.
The commission gave the Cubs the green light on construction of a plaza in its adjacent triangle property, a six-story office building and a boutique hotel across the street. The plan includes a pedestrian bridge over Clark Street and a main hotel lobby entrance facing Patterson Street as the team had planned, but the Cubs have "deferred" a planned patio deck over Patterson and hope to revisit the idea at a later date.
We don't need a frickin' Jumbotron. Really. Nor do we need a hotel at Clark and Addison. (And who's going to stay there on the 270 days when the Cubs aren't playing at home?) Oh, and the rooftop owners aren't exactly going to save the day, but their narrow self-interest will at least slow down the destruction:
With the Alderman on their side, the last remaining roadblock to the Cubs' plan could be the Wrigleyville Rooftop Association, which continues to threaten a lawsuit if their views are blocked by outfield signage that was approved last week.
The park has nothing to do with the team sucking like a Dyson; the bad playing does. I have no idea why Tunney is letting this go through or why Ricketts thinks he needs to build this.
Wrigley's biggest draw is its history. Ricketts and Tunney, who have attention spans only slightly longer than Parker's, can't understand this.
Detroit has just filed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in history:
The filing begins a 30- to 90-day period that will determine whether the city is eligible for Chapter 9 protection and define how many claimants might compete for the limited settlement resources that Detroit has to offer. The bankruptcy petition would seek protection from creditors and unions who are renegotiating $18.5 billion in debt and other liabilities.
Detroit’s bankruptcy is by far the largest of its kind in U.S. history, in terms of the city’s population of about 700,000 and the amount of its debts and liabilities, which Orr has said could be as high as $20 billion. Because of the stakes involved, and the impact on residents statewide, as well as 30,000 current and retired city workers and Detroit’s ability to stay in business, the case could be precedent setting in the federal judiciary. It could also set an important trajectory for the way troubled cities nationwide settle their financial difficulties.
It's hard to see how Detroit comes back from this. Decades of mismanagement and white flight, with an indifferent (and sometimes larcenous) state government letting it happen adds up.
Security guru Bruce Schneier suggests Snowden might not have considered all the likely outcomes:
Edward Snowden has set up a dead man's switch. He's distributed encrypted copies of his document trove to various people, and has set up some sort of automatic system to distribute the key, should something happen to him.
Dead man's switches have a long history, both for safety (the machinery automatically stops if the operator's hand goes slack) and security reasons. WikiLeaks did the same thing with the State Department cables.
I'm not sure he's thought this through, though. I would be more worried that someone would kill me in order to get the documents released than I would be that someone would kill me to prevent the documents from being released. Any real-world situation involves multiple adversaries, and it's important to keep all of them in mind when designing a security system.
Possibly spending a few years at the Moscow airport might be his safest option. But then again, his whole strategy seemed flawed from the start.
The Met issues a heat warning as London experiences its fifth consecutive day of 30°C weather? Nope.
Heathrow will finally get a third runway, with new plans submitted this week? Nope.
The Queen has given her assent to a law making same-sex marriage legal in England and Wales? Yep:
The Queen's approval of the Marriage (same sex couples) Bill was a formality, and now clears the way for the first gay marriages, the first of which are expected to be conducted by Summer 2014.
The bill enables gay couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies in England and Wales. It also will allow couples who had previously entered into a civil partnership to convert their relationship to a marriage.
However, religious organisations will have to 'opt in' on performing gay marriages.
Nice map (from Wikipedia). I hope it gets filled in a lot more over the next few years.
No, not more modern Pinkertons, repeating bad policy from the 1880s. This time we're repeating ancient Rome's mistakes, a parallel Atlantic writers Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane draw out:
Before their empire fell, the Romans built walls.
They began by erecting barriers along the border following the death of the Emperor Trajan in 117 A.D., notably Hadrian's Wall, which belted Britain. Later emperors erected internal walls, even around the great city itself, to ward off barbarians. After 300 A.D., the Emperor Diocletian effectively converted the entire Roman populace into feudal serfs, walling them off from internal movement in a vain effort to stabilize the chaotic economy.
Sadly, many Americans are all too eager to repeat history.
Witness the immigration bill slowly making its way through Congress, and the feverish reactions it has inspired. In exchange for granting undocumented workers a path to citizenship, Republicans have demanded a so-called "border surge" that would double the number of patrol agents in the Southwest and build an extra 700 miles of fencing.
They make a succinct argument with a good hypothesis about why, exactly, Republicans want a useless wall on our southern frontier.
One of Josh Marshall's readers says Florida's self-defense rules are insane:
I’m a criminal defense lawyer in Wisconsin... In Florida, if self-defense is even suggested, it’s the state's obligation to prove its absence beyond a reasonable doubt(!). That’s crazy. But ‘not guilty’ was certainly a reasonable result in this case. As I told in friend in Tampa today though, if you’re ever in a heated argument with anyone, and you’re pretty sure there aren’t any witnesses, it’s always best to kill the other person. They can’t testify, you don’t have to testify, no one else has any idea what happened; how can the state ever prove beyond a doubt is wasn’t self-defense? Holy crap!
By contrast, in the civilized world—I'm including Illinois here, bear with me—"self-defense" is an affirmative defense requiring the defendant to prove it by preponderance of the evidence. (720 ILCS 5/9-2 outlines how Zimmerman would probably be convicted of 2nd degree murder in Illinois given the facts of the case.)
When I learned the result last night, I posted a Facebook status saying: "I wonder if we should have waited until Florida was a mature, civilized democracy before admitting it into the U.S." My friends have added more than 20 comments so far, including a clip of Bugs Bunny cutting Florida loose. (I love my friends.) I wonder if this reading of Florida law changes anyone's opinion?