The changes reshaping Chicagoland: transit projects, development, stadium moves, budgets, and what each one means for the people who live here.
The mayor's 2027 Chicago budget proposal asks for $15.65 billion from the city's own funds, $848.8 million more than the 2026 budget, and nearly a third of the increase is bond principal and interest. Every department, the corporate fund, positions and revenue, from the city's own files.
Chicago's winter parking ban covers 20 stretches of 18 streets from 3 to 7 a.m. every morning from Dec. 1 to April 1, snow or not; violators are towed. The streets, mapped, and how often two inches of snow falls.
Chicago has logged 582 foreclosed rental properties under the Keep Chicago Renting ordinance since 2021, 44 in Auburn Gresham. Covered tenants can take $10,600 in relocation assistance even when offered a new lease.
The Cook County Commission on Human Rights’ posted decisions file: 791 decisions dated 2013 through 2025, 40 labeled Substantial Evidence (19 of them in 2017, five since 2019) and 677 procedural dismissals, led by lack of jurisdiction, settlement and voluntary withdrawal. By kind of complaint and by year; no party named.
Cook County’s Shakman-exempt list, positions where by the county’s description political affiliation may be considered in hiring, holds 454 positions; 111 list no incumbent. The Office of the President has 50; Transportation and Highways lists no incumbent for 12 of its 22. Titles and grades counted, no names read.
Cook County’s public bid-tabulation file, counted solicitation by solicitation: 277 of 1,284 since June 2016 drew exactly one response and 108 drew none - 30.0 percent. The share reached 44.9 percent in 2022 and fell to 28.8 percent in 2025; formal bids above $25,000 drew one response or none 32.7 percent of the time, proposals 11.5 percent. No bid amount or firm name is published.
Cook County’s check register records $6.18 billion paid to suppliers, vendors and other payees in 2025, and one payee name, EVOLENT HEALTH LLC, received $2.76 billion of it - 44.7 percent. A single name has taken more than 41 cents of every register dollar each year since 2018: VALENCE HEALTH through 2022, EVOLENT HEALTH LLC since 2023. The register does not say what the payments bought, and the county’s contracts file has no matching row under either name.
Chicago police crash reports, counted with aggregate queries: 1,710 people with an incapacitating injury in 2025, the fewest of any full year of citywide records and 25.1 percent below 2023 - a drop among drivers, passengers and pedestrians, while cyclists’ 180 were the second-most in eight years. Through August 15, 2026 injuries are lower again and deaths are ten ahead of 2025. Plus: three city files, three death counts.
Chicago’s Department of Procurement Services took an average of 40.9 days to approve a task order request in 2026 through September 13, by this desk’s weighting of its weekly scoreboard - more than six times 2023’s 6.2 days. The file lists a 14-day target, and no week in 2025 averaged at or under it. Its City Auctions scoreboard passed its $2 million goal in May and reached $4.13 million. They are the last two of the data portal’s 52 Performance Metrics datasets still updated every week.
The city’s Vision Zero traffic fatality list, read whole: 101 deaths in 2025, the fewest of any year from 2019 through 2025 and 45.7 percent below the 186 of 2021. By July 29, 2026 the list held 62, five more than at that date in 2025. Pedestrians are 354 of the 1,048 deaths on it, Austin has the most of any community area, and through mid-July 2026 it counts 52 more deaths than the city’s main crash file.
