On A Walk, Christmas Day 2011

Posted on December 26, 2011 by DXO

We took a walk in Lincoln Park yesterday in bright blue Chicago. Here are some pics.

Bench overlooks barren great garden and waits for lush return.

I have no idea what kind of trees these are that produce such bright orange limbs:

The sublime blues of Jeanne Gang’s People’s Gas Education Pavilion seem so stark:

But can be rich tan one second later:

General Grant and his horse never gets to gaze upon it:

Though they sit above a tone walkway with similar radius to the pavilion:

Dozens of birds chirp in season:

The underpass work is nearly done:

One can get lost in horizons:

This Is Why Wide Right Turn Signs Exist (Accident at State and Division in Chicago)

Posted on December 23, 2011 by DXO

I have the world’s largest collection of Wide Right Turn signs (go ahead and Google it and see for yourself). So it was with more than a passing interest that I snapped this fender-bender at the corner of State and Division this afternoon.

Three Window Washers Race to Clean Mies

Posted on December 22, 2011 by DXO

I work in a complex created by Mies van der Rohe in 1970. This pleases me. This morning I noticed these workers getting started on their day. Maintenance is key.

A Boy, A Dog, and a Jeanne Gang Education Pavillion Presented by People’s Gas

Posted on November 7, 2011 by DXO

We live in a world where wonder is often sponsored. So it goes. This is a beautiful place.

Compare and Contrast: A Moment in Time on CTA-Focused Twitter Accounts

Posted on November 3, 2011 by DXO

Here’s the most recent tweet from @cta, the official Twitter account of the Chicago Transit Authority, posted seven hours ago:

$1B investment to upgrade stations & infrastructure for Red Line just announced by @GovernorQuinn @ChicagosMayor & @cta Pres. Claypool

Here’s the most recent tweet from @ctatweet, the unofficial Twitter account of the Chicago Transit Authority, posted seven minutes ago:

MINOR: O’Hare-bound Blue Line Service Experiencing Delays

If you want to be updated on the latest press releases from the CTA, you should definitely follow @cta.

And if you want up-to-the-minute alerts on the current status of the tail end of a rainy rush hour commute, you should follow @ctatweet, and/ or any of the individual train line accounts we maintain: @ctared, @ctablue, @ctabrown, @ctagreen, @ctapink, and @ctapurple.

Harper Reed and I have had your back on Twitter for three years now. Ain’t no stopping us now. We‘re on the move.

UPDATE: To their credit, the @CTA started tweeting service alerts (and follow-ups) about two separate issues on @ctared and @ctablue, notwithstanding their desire not to clutter up their Twitter.

UPDATE 2: The @CTA has posted a survey on the subject of Twitter and their alerts. Chime in!

Needed in the Civic Apps World: Less Data, More Love

Posted on October 12, 2011 by DXO

Last week I helped announce the finalists for the Community Round of the Apps For Metro Chicago contest. Before reading the list of the 10 worthy apps that have moved on to the finals, I shared some thoughts (video here) about the current state of the movement around civic apps. Here they are, written down:

All of us who are involved in Apps For Metro Chicago is a part of something. At a minimum, we are part of a broad movement of developers who have participated in one of the many contests of this kind that have sprung up in the last few years.

But we can decide that we want look back some time in the future and see that we were a part of something bigger— part of a set of companies and projects that helped fundamentally change the way people interact with their cities and each other.

We have focused quite a bit on data in this world of ours, and with good reason. Civic data is at the center of the systems that we create.

But I have seen many glimmers of love in the applications submitted for this contest. And I believe we need a lot less data and a lot more love. Data and the technology that drives it are just delivery mechanisms for human love.

When the City puts asphalt in a hole on the street where my children play, that is love.

When the police help calm a family after a domestic dispute, that is love.

When the park district rolls out the basketballs on a Saturday morning, that is an act of love.

Let’s decide that we want to be a part of this— a sustained, historic drive to build new businesses around data using technology that changes the ways cities work. And let’s make sure we place love at the center.

The Best 4 Jim Warren Paragraphs I’ve Ever Read in My Life

Posted on October 10, 2011 by DXO

This is solid, unfettered gold.

Barbara Moore, the wife of an independent-minded Chicago alderman and backed by Michael Madigan, the omnipotent House speaker, seemed impressive. But, as she began, Joe Berrios, the county assessor and committee chairman, rose and headed to the back, where two boxes of Frisbee-sized concoctions had just arrived, emblazoned with a black marker’s notation, “Alderman Levar.”

I beckoned Tom Tunney, the 44th Ward alderman, for investigative aid, and we concluded they were glazed doughnuts.

The boxes were taped so tightly that Berrios struggled loudly to open them, paying no apparent attention to Moore. I figured she might be in trouble.

She wasn’t slated, but she might complicate the committee’s life by running anyway.

Please, Jim Warren, write like this every day.

Let’s Feed The Occupiers

Posted on October 10, 2011 by DXO

Tonight, around 12:30 AM on my way home from Winfield, I drove past the northeast corner of LaSalle and Jackson, which is the center of the Occupy Chicago movement. There were about 25 people there, and I’m glad they were. Tomorrow I’m going to go over there and see what their food situation is. I figure if they can maintain a constant presence at the center of our financial district, I can bring them some sammiches.

Incomplete Take on the History of Open Data in Chicago

Posted on September 21, 2011 by DXO

In light of today’s official open data launch by Cook County, I wanted to do a top-of-the-head post about what I know– and what I’ve heard from people who know more– about the history of open data in Chicago.

Data journalism has long been a main driver of the open data movement. The current (and most sophisticated) incarnation is the excellent News Apps Team at the Chicago Tribune. Stories like those in the Tribune’s 1986 series American Millstone: An Examination of the Nation’s Permanent Underclass used data to back up the narrative. The Sun-Times’ Pulitzer-winning stories about the impact of shootings is partly a result of their dogged efforts to get data.

Government technology workers themselves have been at the center of every open data project I can think of. Complete GIS (geographic information systems) data, including all street segments, applicable address ranges, and shape files for the city limits and other relevant boundaries, have been available for download on the City’s Web site for years. One-off databases like the long-running license lookup tool maintained by the State of Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation is another example of existing data that has whetted appetites.

Chicago has been a leader in the publication and display of crime data going back 15 years. The Chicago Police Department launched their Citizen ICAM (Information Collection for Automated Mapping) database– a mapping program inside police stations to run on PCs running Windows 95 based on MapInfo 2.0 software. Later renamed CLEARMap (CLEAR stands for Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting– my goodness, governments love acronyms that make words and near-words), this is the data that fed the groundbreaking ChicagoCrime.org. Here’s a fascinating 1996 report by the National Institute of Justice lauding the program:

The Chicago Police Department’s Information Collection for Automated Mapping (ICAM) Program

View more documents from Daniel X. O’Neil.

Without the painstaking work of the GIS professionals at the City’s technology department, and the 1993 creation of CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy), there would have been no data with which to create any Chicago crime-oriented projects. Which is not to say that CLEARMap was an “open data” project– it just so happened that the data was open.

Open data in Chicago was also driven by nonprofits like the Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC). Here’s them:

Founded in 1990, Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) was created by members of the Commercial Club of Chicago to collect demographic and baseline data on social policy and human needs on a regular basis in order to create a more complete picture of the 7-county metropolitan Chicago region, thereby empowering the nonprofit sector with critical information to make better strategic development decisions.

Another key group is the Illinois Data Exchange Affiliates, a group consisting of nonprofits and local governments (Center For Neighborhood Technology, Chicago Metropolis 2020, City of Chicago, Cook County Assessor, MCIC, and Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning) devoted to some core principles:

Society works best when information is generally available

Government works best when information is shared across divisions

Web technology gives unprecedented opportunities for making data available

Ensuring access to public data requires clear guidelines on how, when and with whom data is to be shared

THEREFORE, we seek to advance the coordination of and access to public information.

The County deserves a lot of credit for getting a mitt and getting in the game on open data. Their work is creative and thoughtful. The simple “Make the Tough Choices” tool indicates to me that open data is just one part of an overall commitment to engage with residents on how to solve our problems. Because they have to. Look at Cook– the budget exploration tool from Commissioner John Fritchey– is another example of something created to inform and engage. Now all we need to do is get informed and get engaged. Because we have to.

Slightly stretching the Chicago connection, the Open Data movement got succor when some dude from Chicago was elected President of the United States. On his first full day in office, he published Executive Orders with regard to transparency and open government. This substantive work continues, including this week’s launch of the Open Government Partnership as a major part of our country’s foreign policy.

This is where it’s at– open data as a key component of other, essential policies and modes of interaction among governments and the people they serve. That’s why these efforts by Cook County– all done in the context of other data released by the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois– represent a great step forward. There is a nascent cohesiveness to open data in Chicago. Government policy, markets, consumer needs, and developers need to be in synch for us to go beyond mere data. Groups like OpenGovChicago– started and nurtured by many of the groups and people represented in this history– is one place where we gather to trade ideas. Join us!

Also: what did I miss? Let me know below.

UPDATE, 9/24/11:
Another data-informed series was the Tribune’s “Chicago schools: ‘worst in America’: an examination of the public schools that fail Chicago” from 1988 (h/t@richgor).

UPDATE, 9/25/11:
Data intermediaries like those who are part of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership have also been there from the beginning. One example from 1987 is a consortium called the Illinois Economic DataBase (reffed here). It included the University of Illinois Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development and corporate partners like the Federal Reserve Bank, People’s Gas, and First National Bank of Chicago. They tried to get data out of the Illinois Department of Employment Security and data on economic activity, that would help local governments understand their economy better. MCIC President Virginia Carlson was a part of the consortium while at UIC, and she reports that the IED published hardcopy data for a year or two in the late 80′s early 90′s, but stopped thereafter.

– via VL_Carlson via her excellent post “Getting the Digital Goods“, wherein she writes of this time period, makes a good case for nonprofit primacy in this sphere, and reminds us that the publication of “statistical data — data that surveyors and researchers collect through observation and experimentation”– lags.

Detail of the Great Garden South of the Conservatory in Lincoln Park

Posted on September 6, 2011 by DXO

The other day I rode to the Alfred Caldwell Lilly Pool just north of the Lincoln Park Zoo. This is one of my favorite places in the city.

I also stopped in the Conservatory and was stunned to see the incredibly full-bloomed Great Garden at Stockton Dr. & Webster St. Here’s some info on the Garden that I was not aware of:

This is one of Chicago’s oldest existing gardens. Designed and planted in the late 1870s, it was one of several landscape improvements made when the park was expanded from its original sixty acres to new boundaries between Diversey Pkwy. and North Ave. (Today, the park stretches from Ardmore St. to Ohio St.) The garden originally surrounded the park’s first greenhouse, which dated to the same period. Flowers propagated in the greenhouse were planted in the garden. The formal design of this “French style” garden was considered especially appropriate as the setting of a horticultural facility. The garden remained after the greenhouse was demolished in 1890 and replaced with the impressive Victorian conservatory, which still stands today. It is noteworthy that this formal French garden is adjacent to the historic Grandmother’s Garden, an English style cottage garden located on the west side of Stockton Drive.

I tried to get detail shots of every different species of plant represented on each of the 12 flower beds, like this:

Awesome stuff. Thanks to the Chicago Park District employees who maintain this stuff– not an easy task!

Derivative Works

The personal Web site of Daniel X. O'Neil

Category Archives: Chicago