At its current pace, the city’s project to replace lead water lines in Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods could take two centuries. Researchers at Northwestern University and community activists are ...

Sara Cooper, a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, joined TCR’s newsroom team in June. Her investigative reporting will enhance TCR’s coverage of environmental ...

New “Justice for Debtor” bill to enable more Illinoisans to participate in small claims court by eliminating appearance fees for defendants, and more. Every year, around 8,000 cases are filed before ...

Founded on the heels of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, The Chicago Reporter confronts racial and economic inequality ...

Key Elementary School, a sandy-colored brick building on a tree-lined street on Chicago’s West Side, sits empty now. Several windows near its entrance are boarded up, giving the school’s façade the ...

1837 Chicago becomes official with its first city charter. 1854 John Dore, a Boston teacher and principal, becomes Chicago’s first school superintendent. 1870 Public school enrollment stands at more ...

Chicago needs a change in anti-violence strategies. Gangs today are not so much the cause of violence as one of the effects of distressed communities. We need to switch our focus from targeting gangs ...

It’s just after 9:30 on a recent Tuesday morning. Cook County Circuit Court Associate Judge Clarence Burch takes off his wire-rimmed glasses, rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands and slides them ...

Glenn Evans watched from the side of his West Pullman home as a tall man with a wide frame limped up the walk. “Get off my property,” he shouted. But that didn’t stop the man from stepping slowly and ...

The biggest controversy of Rahm Emanuel’s first year as mayor was caused by his decision to close six of the city’s twelve mental health clinics. For months, protestors from the Mental Health Movement ...

When paramedics arrived, Jesse Bogan was still handcuffed to the wall, blood spurting from three gaping wounds in his left foot. A German Shepherd named Demon had bitten through his sneaker and held ...

By many measures, Kansas City, Missouri, and Chicago are similar. Both are sprawling Midwestern cities with shrinking school districts marred by long histories of racial segregation, funding woes and ...