The Chicago Housing Authority has promised a bright future for the Julia C. Lathrop Homes, but the agency's credibility with tenants at the development remains on the slide. For years, CHA has told residents at Lathrop that the 75-year-old development is due for a makeover, pointing to the site's low occupancy rate - currently at a 22 percent - and the safety issues that come with that gap in tenantship.

When Art Potash received a call from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association informing him that his business, Potash Markets, was chosen as 2011 Illinois Retailer of the Year, he was caught off guard.

Like a once-in-a-lifetime ride on a time machine, mortgage interest rates are taking borrowers on a sojourn six decades back to the early 1950s, experts say. Rates are now the lowest in generations.

On Tuesday night, about 150 residents and local stakeholders gathered in a Northwestern Memorial Hospital conference room to hear presentations on a pair of high-profile developments on the horizon in the city's downtown medical district.

The Navy Pier Flyover, a proposed overpass that's been touted as a safety boon for Chicago bikers and pedestrians on the heavily-traveled lakefront trail, is slated to get a big chunk of money that could make the project a reality.

After 13 years of being tucked away in the university’s library, DePaul's Art Museum has a new home and a new vision. Located next door to the CTA's Fullerton Red Line stop, the museum is looking to attract more - and more diverse - visitors than found their way to the old location in the university's main library building.

Leave it to a Skyliner to be a trendsetter and own one of the first all-electric cars in Chicago: the Think Car. As someone who strives to recycle and reuse whenever possible, I was excited to hear about Think, because it's very cool to me that the car’s environmental impact is almost zero. So says its seller, Doug Snower, founder of WindFree Renewable Energy Co., 1440 N. Ashland Ave.

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) is making a bid to boost his influence within the Democratic Party by running for a second office, he announced in an email to his supporters Monday afternoon.

Maurice Edwards stood pensively as he watched residents and Chicago Housing Authority officials slowly filter into the makeshift conference room of a Cabrini-Green residential development last Thursday afternoon. As a member of Cabrini's Local Advisory Council, Edwards had been called to the meeting by CHA that day to discuss the future of the Frances Cabrini Rowhouses, a 584-unit low-rise public housing complex on the Near North Side.

Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno (1st) took hard lumps last week from some council members in the first round of hearings on his push to make it easier for Chicagoans to live where they work. Co-sponsored by Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), the measure would allow owners to operate live/work spaces in all business districts, as well as in commercial areas with a special use permit.