Loop buildings built in the 1990s have the highest vacancy rate–41 percent–according to a recent survey by CB Commercial Real Estate Group. Next are 1970s buildings (23 percent) and pre-1950 buildings (19 percent).
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Greenways: so popular they can’t pass a referendum? Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission senior adviser Lawrence B. Christmas, in Illinois Issues (April): “The popularity of open space was brought sharply into focus recently when the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC), in partnership with the nonprofit Openlands Project, released a regional greenway plan calling for a 1,000-mile linked system of parks, waterways, trails and other linear land forms….Not since the Burnham Plan of 1909 had planning of any kind been so warmly received.” But he takes exception to a clause in the 1991 collar-county tax-cap legislation that requires voters to approve general obligation bonds, including those for open space: “What is wrong with requiring taxpayer approval? Local officials argue that ‘investments for the future’ are a tough sell in today’s political climate. Of the 11 bond referendums held in Du Page County since early 1991, only four were approved.”
“Since I couldn’t afford to go to college, I attended the library three or four days a week from the age of eighteen on, and graduated from the library when I was twenty-eight,” says novelist and Waukegan native Ray Bradbury in a testimonial for the American Library Association. “When I speak to students, I tell them ‘It’s no use going to school if the library is not your final goal.’ That’s how important it is for everyone and has been for me.” Perhaps the Chicago Public Libraries would be better off if Mayor Daley’s education had taken the same path.
