The changes reshaping Chicagoland: transit projects, development, stadium moves, budgets, and what each one means for the people who live here.
The Near West Side has more Divvy stations than any other Chicago community area - 91 in Divvy's own live feed - with the Near North Side at 90 and Lincoln Park at 76. The top ten areas ranked from the operator's feed, each entry showing the city dataset's count beside it, because the two official files sit 840 stations apart inside the city.
Chicago's official Divvy-station dataset lists 1,197 stations with 20,100 docks; Divvy's own live feed, read the same week, lists 2,048 - and 2,009 of them sit inside the city's 77 community areas, 840 more than the city file places there. Both counted the same way, both dated, plus the archived feed's growth arc from 72 stations in July 2013 to 1,419 on its last day in 2022. Infrastructure only - the trips live in our ridership analysis.
Chicago's own employee file lists 31,768 positions across 39 departments, and more than half sit in just two: police (12,181) and fire (4,779). The most common job title in city government is Police Officer - 24.7 percent of the entire roster. Salaried and hourly are different rosters, part-time barely exists, and one corner of the file is listed at $4.73 an hour. Counted from the roster as published, with no employee named.
Chicago publishes every CDOT filming-permit application as data — 26,307 since 2013 — and the fee columns tell the sharper story: $8.78 million in calculated fees on 2021–2026 applications, $5.66 million of it waived, with no reason recorded in the file. The volume arc, the fee regimes, and the streets where the location rows cluster, counted at the grain the file actually uses.
Chicago’s 121 TIF districts ended the 2024 report year holding $3.05 billion in their special funds — more than double the 2017 reports’ $1.42 billion, in a roster that shrank from 144 districts. The year’s $1.25 billion increment against $515 million in itemized spending, the biggest funds ranked, and the transit TIF’s $70 million — all from the reports’ own figures.
Chicago publishes what lobbyists report being paid, quarter by quarter, and the ledger since 2014 just recorded its biggest first half: $15.0 million filed for January–June 2026 periods, ahead of record-year 2024’s $13.6 million. Bally’s Corporation tops the client list both years. Every figure as filed, with the co-filing ambiguity quantified, never smoothed.
The Near North Side had 196 permitted sidewalk cafés in the 2025 season — the most of any Chicago community area, and down from 227 in 2019. The top ten hold 81 percent of the city’s 1,169 permitted cafés, with the Loop at 75 percent of its 2019 count while four North Side areas run above theirs. From the city’s own permit file.
Lake View holds 77 premises with an active Tavern license — the most of any Chicago community area, and down from 100 in 2003. The twelve leading areas, through a three-way tie at 18, hold 58 percent of the city’s 758 licensed taverns — and only Rogers Park sits above its 2003 count. From the city’s own license file.
Chicago’s $1.89 billion ARPA grant is 98.6 percent expended, with $27.2 million left across 22 program lines as of the city ledger’s July 31 refresh — the largest balance on the CARE alternative-response program, and one broadband line showing $695 spent of $4 million. Counted from the city’s own files, with Treasury’s December 31 deadline reported as Treasury’s rule.
Chicago keeps two rolling 90-day lists of vehicles it has moved: tows to the pound, and relocations — cars moved without being impounded. We archived both on August 8: 5,396 recorded tows, 95 percent to two pounds, and 4,259 relocations, more than half labeled with city work reasons — and 72 percent of relocated cars record a different drop street than where they started.
