Where the buffalo may soon roam. Marianne L. Hahn in Natural Area Notes (Spring): “Thirty-seven miles of chain link fence [will] permit reintroduction of bison” in the 43-square-mile Joliet Arsenal if a plan to turn it over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is approved. “To erect the fence at today’s costs would run about $4 million. Who would spend that much in today’s economic climate to restore bison to a reconstructed prairie? Yet here it’s in place.”
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On the way up, but not there yet. According to the Latino Institute’s LatStat (March), almost a third (31.7 percent) of Latino householders in Chicago owned their own homes in 1990–up from less than one-quarter (24.4 percent) in 1980, but still well below the 43 percent home-ownership rate of non-Latinos. That translates into an increase from 27,541 to 44,768 Chicago Latino home owners in ten years.
New horizons in museum marketing. Notice how the Chicago Academy of Sciences has started calling itself “the Nature Museum” these days? Cynthia Baniak, vice president for development and marketing, says the institution has learned from focus groups that “many people are intimidated by science, but they have a very positive association with the natural environment. Building on that point has become key to positioning the museum” (CAS Notes, June/July/August).
“If people aren’t prepared for jobs, two years and out just becomes a clever way to end welfare benefits,” West Humboldt Park welfare recipient Belinda Harris tells the Washington Post weekly (April 18-24). “What happens if you go off aid and you’re not ready? You’ve got no income and you’ve got no way you can make it without hitting Joey over the head. It’ll lead to more crime.”
