Events

A Chicago architect wants to turn our worst waterway into a park: In certain areas, the Chicago River is now more than 70 percent partially treated sewage – and a public health risk, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Another problem is that invasive species, such as round gobies, zebra mussels and the most current threat, Asian carp, have had little trouble migrating up or down this watery pipeline to imperil eco-systems at either end. In 2010, the Natural Resources Defense Council...

This month goes to 11.

Today the city of Chicago finally got around to building emergency turnarounds on Lake Shore Drive, on which hundreds of cars got stranded last Feburary: Both escape routes are on the near North Side - one will be at Armitage; the other at Schiller. Chicago Department of Transportation officials say those spots were chosen because they're prone to snow drifts. They will create turnaround access to north and southbound lanes during emergency situations, like last February's 20 inches of snow blizzard....

"Leading e-commerce development and acquisition group" KASA Capital sent me this email over the weekend: I'd like to contribute an article to your site, thedailyparker.com - I can select a topic that matches the tone and theme of your site, or if you prefer, I can write about something of your choosing. The article will be unique and interesting to read. In return, I ask that I be able to subtly include a link to my site ____ within the article. If you are able to put a permanent link to the article in...

This afternoon, North Pond, Chicago: Canon 7D, ISO-100, 1/125 at f/5.6, 18mm, here.

The Commonwealth has approved gender-neutral primogeniture for the British throne. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's firstborn will become the heir apparent, whether it's a boy or girl: "Attitudes have changed fundamentally over the centuries and some of the outdated rules — like some of the rules of succession — just don't make sense to us any more," [British Prime Minister David] Cameron told reporters in Perth. "The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply...

Despite the teams involved, I must (begrudgingly) accept that yesterday's bottom-of-the 11th, two-out, two-strike World Series home run was pretty damn cool. (So was the bottom-of-the 9th, two-out, two-strike game-tying triple that the same guy hit a few minutes earlier.) And yes, I would say the same thing if the American League team had done it. For readers outside the U.S.: The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals have a baseball rivalry going back over a century. Think Arsenal and Chelsea, only...

Two tangentially-related stories this afternoon. First, from HuffPo, President Obama did not sic the FBI on medical-marijuana dispensaries in California; the U.S. attorneys did it on their own: Obama as a candidate promised to maintain a hands-off approach toward pot clinics that adhered to state law, with Attorney General Eric Holder publicly asserting that federal prosecutors would not initiate enforcement actions against any patients or providers in compliance with state law, deeming it an...

I'm at a client site today and tomorrow, jamming on database optimization. Expect regular posts to resume Friday.

Via Atlantic Cities, the recession may help move developers away from the 19 standard building types identified in a report from UC Berkeley in 2005: [T]he Grocery Anchored Neighborhood Center...is generally about 5 or 6 hectares in size on a plot of land that’s 80 percent covered in asphalt. It’s located on the going-home side of a major four-to-eight lane arterial road, where it catches people when they’re most likely to be thinking about what to buy for dinner. It has a major, 4,600 to 6,500...