The Chicago Tribune

Critic Blair Kamin speaks out against Mayor Emmanuel's decision to allow advertising on Chicago's iconic bridges to make up a budget shortfall. Kamin calls the move "the uglification of the City Beautiful."

In 1958, 618 S. Michigan Ave. was stripped of its former glory in a modernist makeover. Today, building owners are planning to clad the front with glass and project a ghost-like image of the original facade on it.

That would be Chicago, falling from the number one spot but holding strong at #2, according to the latest figures from the Texas Transportation Institute. Washington, D.C. gains the crown.

Chicago's Wrigley Building is a standout among the city's rich architectural heritage. City officials never formally gave it landmark status because they felt the Wrigley family would never mar their history, but the building has a new owner now.

The 10-lane Kennedy Expressway in Chicago is forced to manage significantly more traffic than it was designed to handle. Traffic planners have installed a flexible lane that can increase the flow in one direction, but Chicagoans are baffled by them.

Senator Mark Kirk presented details yesterday about his plan to lease public transportation assets to private companies or partner with them to expand transit.

Hit-and-run accidents in Chicago are double the national average. That's just one factor as the city develops its first ever comprehensive pedestrian plan.

Rahm Emmanuel's latest appointee is transportation secretary Gabe Klein, who, columnist John Hilkevitch writes, "...promises to shake things up here."

Lawrence Okrent is a Chicago planning and zoning consultant and also a photographer. Recreating a series of aerial photographs from 1985, he shows the remarkable growth of the city over the last 15 years.

The FBI's Chicago offices are LEED certified, but the 10-story building is also a killer: at least 10 birds a day careen into its windows. A conservation group helped the Feds get bird-friendly.

Blair Kamin says that Chicago's new master plan for the Lakeview neighborhood is full of big and "audacious" ideas, including a park under the El and many pedestrian improvements.

A new show of South African photographer Guy Tillim's work reveals the modernist architecture of Africa as a remnant of colonialism.

Columnist Jon Hilkevitch writes that a new public-opinion poll on mass-transit issues found that the Chicagoans care deeply about them. Though the candidates haven't taken sides yet, it could be a deciding factor.

Lawrence Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Square ballooned over the years to 4 lanes. Putting the street on a "road diet" will make it friendlier to pedestrians.

Blair Kamin reflects on the soon-to-be-ex-mayor Richard Daley's legacy, his "passion to build," and how Chicago might be shaped without his influence.

Lax enforcement of standards created to limit exhaust from idling diesel-powered vehicles and buses shows that there is still work to be done in Mayor Richard Daley's quest to position Chicago atop the list of the nation's greenest cities.

Blair Kamin looks at "Go to 2040", a new regional plan for the Chicago area that he says has few goals to get excited about and "reflects an era of scarce resources."

Berwyn, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, is running an aggressive marketing campaign to convince the gay community that their small city is a friendly and affordable place for them to live.

Randhurst Mall was the first enclosed mall in the Chicago Area. Today, developers are replacing the mall with an open-air, mixed-use project with a traditional Main Street-style design.

Blair Kamin applauds a new plaza at the Trump International Hotel + Tower, and calls an aging public space nearby 'an eyesore.'