The Postal Service is studying closing 13 area post offices by year-end. Coincidentally, eight of the ten Chicago offices under consideration for closing are in predominantly African American neighborhoods. more ›

Gov. Quinn has asked Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman to conduct a study looking into the feasibility of one day connecting Amtrak Service from Union Station to O'Hare as a nonstop commuter rail as an alternative to Mayor Daley's much-criticized plan for high speed rail from the unfinished Block 37 station to the airport. Quinn sees an opportunity to connect O'Hare with proposed high-speed rail lines between St. Louis and Chicago. the goal of the study is to measure the costs of doing so and figure out the logistics. more ›

A study released yesterday by a state commission revealed African Americans convicted of low level drug related charges are five times more likely to go to prison than whites in Illinois. The Sun Times reports the study started in 2008 by the Illinois Disproportionate Justice Impact Study Commission found that 19 percent of American American defendants were sentenced to prison, while only 4 percent of whites were sent to prison for Class 4 drug possession crimes. The disparity widens in Cook County, where African American defendants are eight times more likely to face jail time for the same crime. more ›

A study by retirement planning website Topretirements.com listed the ten worst states for retirees. If you have money on the Land of Lincoln heading the list, it's a push bet. more ›

A report released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Trust for America's Health finds that adult obesity levels in Illinois increased by nearly a full percentage point in the past year. The Land of Lincoln is now the 26th-ranked state in the nation for adult obesity. more ›

So how safe red light cameras anyway? For a while, it's been suggested that they actually make intersections more dangerous. Now, professor Rajiv Shah, an adjunct at UIC, has released a study showing that while traffic accidents across the city are down over the past few years, accidents at the city's 39 red light intersections increased by six percent from 2006 to 2007. Of course - grain of salt - those numbers are now several years old. Not surprisingly, the City of Chicago, which made over $60 million from red light camera tickets in 2009, takes umbrage with Shah's research. more ›

A new study by the Scripps Howard News Service found that a third of traffic deaths linked directly to drinking and driving, out of nearly 6,000 traffic fatalities in Cook County between 1994 and 2008. When comparing data from across the country, Scripps Howard also listed Cook County's portion of Interstate 94 as the 11th most dangerous road in the nation, with 301 fatalities between 1994 and 2008. more ›

A new study recently released by researchers [via] at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Loyola University Chicago shows that the opening of a Walmart in Chicago's Austin neighborhood has not increased retail activity or employment opportunities in the area. Walmart's expansion into urban areas has been controversial, and it's renewed attempts to open a second store on the city's South side has been surrounded with charges that the mega-retailer destroys small business and drives down wages. Supporters claim that there is an employment crisis in the black community and Walmart will bring hundreds of jobs to a neighborhood that desperately needs them. "What we're seeing here is that placing a Walmart in an urban setting is basically a wash in terms of sales revenue for the city and jobs for local residents," study co-author David Merriman, head of the UIC department of economics and professor of public administration said. "This means that communities around the city shouldn't see Walmart or other big-box retailers as a panacea for local economic problems." 37th Ward Alderman Emma Mitts disagreed with the study, saying on WTTW's Chicago Tonight that "people see what they want to see," and that she hadn't heard anyone in her community complaining. more ›

Adding to post-impeachment “stop corruption in Illinois” demands, a new University of Illinois at Chicago report draws on the state’s 150-year history of political sleaze to offer tips for improvement. The 49-page delve into Illinois dirty laundry traces its corruption record back to the 1860s, when the report’s authors say disorderly and rapid population growth in Chicago, in addition to a mass influx of immigrants needing support from local officials, fed the fire of the now infamous Machine. more ›

Freakonomics author and University of Chicago Economics Professor Steven Levitt and sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh presented a draft of their paper, “An Empirical Analysis of Street-Level Prostitution” last week at an economics conference in New Orleans. The paper examines the business of sex work on the streets of Chicago, a draft of which is available on the Web with the disclaimer “extremely preliminary and incomplete.” more ›