Chicago

Hot summers make for a bloody Chicago

What's the best way to address violence in warming cities? If you're a cop, try redefining homicide -- literally.

Eve Andrews Culture

Chicago pot farm takes urban agriculture to its logical conclusion

It's local, it's thriving, and -- oh, yeah -- it can get you high.

Sarah Laskow Cities

Street artist turns Chicago into a Monopoly board

Socially conscious graffiti is nice and all, but we prefer it when street artists have a sense of humor. So this work by artist (or art collective) Bored is right up our alley (ha) — it uses 3D sculpture to turn the streets of Chicago into a Monopoly board.

Jess Zimmerman Cities

The best subway map tattoos

There are people who like public transportation, and then there are people who want to rub public transportation all over their body parts — or at least get it permanently inked on them. Here are some of our favorite transit-map tattoos from the internet. Here’s a nice-looking Chicago El map, done large enough that you […]

Jess Zimmerman Cities

Meatpacking plant turns into net-zero-energy vertical farm

Soon, a former meatpacking plant in Chicago will replace carcasses and rendering vats with bakers and brewers and fish farmers and mushroom growers. The Plant (ho ho, a double meaning!) is gathering together a bunch of food-makers to create a self-sustaining system in the 93,500-square-foot abandoned space. As Fast Company reports, a former meatpacking plant […]

Sarah Laskow Buildings

Chicago goes coal-free

Activists have succeeded in getting Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to shut down the city’s two coal plants — one of them by the end of the year. That doesn’t mean the city is off coal power entirely, of course, but banishing coal plants from within the city limits will have a massive effect on urban […]

Jess Zimmerman Energy

Bike-a-Bee does beekeeping by bike

Jana Kinsman’s startup Bike-a-Bee will be a distributed network of beehives in the Chicago area — Kinsman will hook up local urban farms and gardens with bees, which will help pollinate the plants while also producing honey. (Greenspaces that host a beehive get a share of the honey profits.) Meanwhile, Kinsman will care for the […]

Jess Zimmerman Agriculture

This Chicago park will be almost 10 times as big as Manhattan

On Chicago's South Side, 140,000 acres of brownfields and other underused land are just sitting there. But Illinois is putting $17 million into turning that fallow ground into what will be the largest city park in the lower 48. (Alaska has one that's bigger.) The park will be called the Millennium Reserve and will promote […]