The changes reshaping Chicagoland: transit projects, development, stadium moves, budgets, and what each one means for the people who live here.
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.
West Town leads Chicago in bike-rack installation records since 2015 with 739, the Loop nine behind - and the top ten areas hold just over half the file's 9,448 mapped records. No complete rack census exists in any city file; this list ranks the records that do.
Eight of Chicago's high-volume 311 request types, ranked by median days from creation to recorded closure: traffic signals in about three hours, graffiti under a day, potholes about five days with an 89-day slow tail, garbage carts about 15 days. 793,774 requests timed.
Chicago's bike-rack records come in two files that were never merged: 9,449 records of installs since 2015 - reaching all 77 community areas, led by West Town and the Loop - and a 5,164-row file frozen in 2011. More than half the current records carry no type, the quantity column's unit is unstated, and no complete rack count exists in either file.
Sixteen adopted budget ordinances, 2011-2026, read as one: the only department label in every file is Finance General, which nearly tripled to $8.19 billion - 44 percent of the $18.67 billion 2026 ordinance - while the salaries account's share fell from 29 to 19 percent. Authorizations, never spending.
