Ten payee names took 30 cents of every contract dollar Chicago paid in 2025 — nearly the same share as 2019. Who they are, where a single payee takes a majority of a department’s dollars, and the $4.94 billion in direct vouchers the comparison can’t touch.
The highest two-bedroom value on HUD’s FY2026 rent schedule for Chicago’s core ZIPs is a 14-way tie at $2,670 — the cap’s work. The lowest is $1,290, in 60609. Schedule values by ZIP, from the agency’s own files.
The ten Chicago speed-camera locations that recorded the most violations in the year through June 29, 2026, summed from the city’s own violations dataset — led by a single camera on Ashland Avenue beside McKinley Park.
Chicago rideshare trips cost $4.21 a mile all-in in June 2026, and where the trip starts moves that number by a factor of two. The five most and least expensive pickup areas, from the city’s own trip files.
The ten busiest measured street segments in Chicago, ranked from the city’s camera-derived Average Daily Traffic feed — four of them on one stretch of Cicero Avenue.
Every license-bearing failed food inspection 2019-2024, followed to the same license's next recorded visit: 84.6% ended in a pass, 12.3% failed again, and among fails that later reached a pass the median wait was 7 days. The fast clock in Chicago enforcement - set against the building-violation ledger's slow one.
The city's own land inventory: 12,110 parcels marked owned, a fifth of the located ones in Englewood and West Englewood alone. Sales fell from 259 in 2024 to 195 in 2025; just 874 parcels are marked Offered. Among 2023-and-later sales with both dates, the median parcel had been city property for 23.4 years.
Chicago rideshare riders paid $4.21 a mile in June 2026, up from $3.81 three Junes earlier - but the fare component fell from $2.90 to $2.51. The 'additional charges' line grew from 18.2% to 34.6% of the bill, with the climb starting in mid-2025. Lincoln Park pickups run $5.51 a mile; West Pullman, $2.73.
Chicago issued wrecking permits at 4,482 sites in 2018-2022. We matched every one against the city's new-construction permits by parcel number and address: 42.8 percent show a rebuild permit. Logan Square, 187 of 222. West Englewood, 1 of 287. West Pullman, 0 of 137. Where a rebuild comes, the median gap is 50 days.
Chicago's enforcement cameras produce a daily traffic count almost nobody reads: 2.2 million readings across 2,280 street segments this summer. On the 1,572 segments measured in both 2025 and 2026, the median changed -0.4 percent. The busiest stretch: Ontario at La Salle, 33,466 vehicles a day. Cicero Avenue owns four of the top ten.
