Chicago Archives - Public Seminar

Politics

What You Don’t Know Can’t TIF You

Pretend something isn’t a problem and it goes away, right?

September 29, 2022 • by Pat Garofalo

TIFs date back to the 1950s, and every state except Arizona has them in one form or another. There are thousands upon thousands of TIF districts all across the country. Chances are decent you’ve heard about one in your local area....

Economy

Parking Meter Monopoly Malfeasance

Chicago reveals the perils of non-competes in infrastructure projects.

April 27, 2022 • by Pat Garofalo

A group of Chicago drivers earlier this month filed an appeal in an antitrust lawsuit they brought, which alleges that a deal the city made to privatize its parking meters for 75 years constitutes an illegal monopoly. They want the court to give the city the power to cancel the agreement outright, ...

Sports

Bear Fight in Chicago

We all need to remember that we may love our sports teams but they don’t love us back

October 8, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

Football season is well and truly underway, and so, apparently, is football stadium subsidy season. First it was the Buffalo Bills, and now it’s the Chicago Bears, whose owners started the process of purchasing land that would allow the team to move from its current home at Soldier Field in ...

Reviews

The Tangled Web of Familial Homophobia

A Secret Love (Directed by Chris Bolan, Netflix, 2020)

June 25, 2020 • by Jen Manion

But I was not prepared for the central role in the documentary film played by Terry’s nieces, Diana Bolan and Tammy Donahue; nor was I prepared for their jarring, casual homophobia. A Secret Love begins with Terry and Pat coming out to their families after having been a couple (they told ...

Activism

The Whole World is Watching

The American Left at a crossroads, redux

May 31, 2020 • by James Miller

I am a spectator to the fire this time. A resident of Manhattan, locked down during our pandemic, sheltering in place as an older person with a pre-existing condition, I now watch the world, not from my perch near Union Square, but from a bungalow in Connecticut, far removed from ...

Feature

Letter Three to Germany: Visiting Chicago Under Trump

In February 2019, Berlin-based author Esther Dischereit observes St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago

June 18, 2019 • by Esther Dischereit

This article was originally published in German in Deutschlandfunk Kultur on April 24, 2019 and has been slightly revised. It is reprinted with the kind permission of Deutschlandfunk Kultur. --- I met Mickey on the Chicago River. “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” said her T-shirt. Her husband, John, a programmer, says that St. ...