Calumet area vision

Calumet area vision

by | Oct 30, 2016 | People & Places, Planning

During 2005-08, I led a non-profit environmental organization in the industrial Lake Calumet area. The area is covered with huge brown fields left by the disappearance of steel making two decades before. It’s interspersed with slag and degraded marsh lands. The...
Chicago

Chicago

by | Oct 20, 2016 | Cities

Chicago is one of the world’s great cities but its future isn’t so certain. The 2nd annual Global Cities Forum, held downtown during three days in June, asked many questions about the world’s top cities. Our town stood shoulder to shoulder with the giants and fared...
Risky routes: the world’s oil chokepoints

Risky routes: the world’s oil chokepoints

by | Sep 20, 2016 | Energy

Robin Mills is head of Qamar Energy and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. His report, “Risky Routes: Energy Transit in the Middle East,” was published by Brookings in April 2016. It charts the whole spectrum of risk, from a temporary diminution of...

Transportation plan for Cook County

by | Aug 19, 2016 | Planning

Cook County led the way in planning and building the expressways that now run through the heart of the city. I reported on the county’s first comprehensive transportation plan since 1940, writing for BuiltWorlds. The new plan is about walking and bicycling and...
Baku

Baku

by | Aug 14, 2016 | Cities

I have enjoyed travelling in the Caucasus region and sometimes visiting the city of Baku. I met two planners there who helped me to see the rich historic layers of the city, in Baku at a Crossroads for Planning magazine.