The changes reshaping Chicagoland: transit projects, development, stadium moves, budgets, and what each one means for the people who live here.
Chicago's administrative-hearings violation file at honest grain: 841,271 charge-line rows describing 144,837 dockets, every one issued by the Buildings department despite the general name. Hearings collapsed in 2020 and 2025 was the busiest year since 2010; 44 percent of dockets carry a fine; the file records no disposition.
Chicago's 811 hit ledger, read at report grain: 62,897 notice rows describing 14,508 hit reports since 2015. Gas service leads the struck-facility mentions, Peoples Gas-owned facilities appear in 43 percent of reports - and 846 reports record what was hit as UNKNOWN. Reports, never verified strikes.
Chicago's passenger-vehicle register, read whole: 16,329 records across nine types, fewer than half ACTIVE - and more taxi records at VIOLATION (3,518) than ACTIVE (2,679). Active liveries now outnumber active taxis; three types have no active record at all; 14 electrics citywide. Statuses reported exactly as recorded.
The Near West Side leads Chicago with 8,088 completed pothole patch jobs since 2018 - but by the file's own potholes-filled counts, Ashburn leads the whole city with 89,393. Both measures shown, with the completed-jobs boundary from the full patch-ledger analysis.
After 130 published readings of Chicago's own files, the files themselves became a subject: columns that never vary, units nobody states, outcomes the categories cannot record, sibling files never merged, names that drift, geography that fails its own coordinates, and words bigger than the file. Every instance linked and re-verified.
Chicago's own mosquito-trap ledger, twenty seasons deep: 187 positive West Nile pools so far in 2026 - the fourth-most through week 32 in the file, behind 2012, 2016, and 2025 - with the weekly surge charted. Trap-pool tests, never human cases, and the boundary holds on every number.
Chicago's TIF deal file, read whole: 767 council-approved redevelopment and intergovernmental agreements since 1986, $6.46 billion in approved subsidy against $24 billion in project costs. The CTA holds the two biggest; The 78 leads 2026; only 30 percent carry a completion certificate. Approvals, never disbursements.
CDOT's own patch ledger, read whole: 2,756,235 potholes filled across 239,812 completed jobs since 2018 - and 2026 through August 17 has already out-filled all of 2025. The median job runs request-to-patch in about five days; every area's count mapped; completed-jobs boundary stated.
The 1st Ward leads Chicago with 276 active shared-housing registrations - the city's term for Airbnb-style rental permission - with the 44th and 27th behind it and the top ten wards holding 46 percent of the citywide 3,852. Ward grain by design: the file's host names and addresses were never touched.
The parking-meter concession read from the documents the city posts: a 75-year lease from February 13, 2009 priced at exactly $1,151,355,186, the audited true-up ledger - $160,953,305 paid by the city through 2024 - the operator's $188.7M 2025 revenues, and the December 2025 agreement by its owners to sell, awaiting Council action as of the audit's April 2026 cutoff.
