For the People...around Chicago

Medill Reports on what's working and what’s not

About Us

We know almost nothing about where tax increment financing dollars come from and go to. We shine a light on one of the city’s most important—and least transparent—development programs.
Thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer, or will suffer, from post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet only a small percentage will get counseling or treatment. How come?
There’s debate over managing public open space in urban areas. Some say let “nature” run its course. Others know better, especially with invasive species like homo irresponsibilius on the loose.
Planners aren’t just talking about 2016 as a “walk-able” Olympics. They’re counting on it, witness a lack of parking at major venues. So how’s that going to work?
Everyone knows about the homeowners, but renters get hammered even worse when a landlord is foreclosed. We examine Chicago’s epidemic of “surprise” evictions … and what can be done to ease the pain.
Many have tried and failed to bring back good jobs and a viable tax base to Chicago’s poorest suburbs. Now long-overlooked assets, like rail lines and expressways, may become lifelines of recovery.

About Us

For the People…around Chicago is a project launched in the spring of 2008 by the Medill News Service to merge in depth reporting with social networking. For years, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism has reported on news and affairs through affiliations between Medill’s graduate journalism program and news organizations throughout the world. We still do that with a flourish through Medill Reports Chicago and Medill Reports Washington.

This project attempts to expand our universe, or more importantly, to create linkages beyond news organizations to groups that have a particular interest in an issue. That enables our stories to continue to be a part of the ongoing conversation about that issue. We cover stories that examine what’s working and what’s not around Chicago. We are well aware that news organizations, including Medill, tend to move on to the next issue, and then another one. Our work gets buried in the flow of continuing events, and those groups and individuals who stay with an issue can feel abandoned.

What we hope to do with this project is to become more connected with you; the network of groups and people who invest in particular issues. Any stories we cover are available to you to redistribute over the web, to republish in your newsletters or other material, to link to from your website, or to embed directly onto your site. Only one proviso; that you credit us with the stories so people know we’re involved. If you are an organization or individual or blog that cares about the issues we cover, let us know so we can link back to you to enhance the network.

Here’s who we are:

Editor and publisher of For the People…around Chicago:

Jack Doppelt

Indispensable web and information technology support:

Matt Paolelli

Bret Walker

Reporters and writers: