Good old girls network

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Didn’t catch this the first time around, but Crain’s recently carried an article about the odd confluence of woman-owned retailers converging in Wicker Park and Bucktown during the recent boutique explosion. Retailing has long been one business sector where women have found success, but women own 80% of the retailers in the WP/B Chamber of Commerce — and nearly half of all WPBCoC businesses. Two factors named: cheap rents (and therefore low startup costs) and a nurturing, supportive competitive environment.

Two great enviro views

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Northwest Environment Watch, one of my favorite — wonkish, optimistic, and pro-urban — enviromental groups, has started Cascadia Scorecard, a blog that builds on its annual regional sustainability scorecard of the same name. They’re a great source for highlighting neat policy innovations on the ecological front.

Similarly, their site also hosts an archive of Price Tags, a weekly column by Gordon Price–NEW board member, former city councillor for downtown Vancouver, and leading advocate of livable urban densities.

Frankenfish

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The Northern snakehead is the “invasive species of the month,” even before one was caught in Lake Michigan last week. Talk about a scary fish: eats anything up to a foot long, looks like a snake, can even “walk” overland between water for three days! Together with the bighead carp (a massive herbivore that has the nasty habit of jumping up onto motorboats), the Asian longhorned beetle, and the various nasty influenza strains arising from southern China, three long-shot scenarios emerge:
– China is waging biological warfare of some sort
– wildlife in China is exceptionally well evolved
– or the zeal for just-killed fish is getting a bit out of hand.

As much as I respect the Asian notion that fresh fish must be killed right before the consumer’s eyes (and yes, the fish is tastier that way), shipping live fish across continents has proven to be an incredibly effective way to diminish the earth’s biodiversity. It’s possible to have fresh fish that’s local, too.

Traps set up in Burnham harbor after the snakehead was identified have caught several large Pacific salmon, among other non-native species. I’ve heard of salmon in Lake Michigan, although the thought initially seemed strange. (Apparently, they’re stocked there to fill the alewife-eating position on the food chain formerly fulfilled by lake trout, which were hurt by sea lamprey. The GLFC reports that Atlantic salmon were once common in Lake Ontario (quite a long ways inland!) and would have made it further up the Lakes if the Niagara Falls weren’t so damned tall.)

To the credit of European and Atlantic species, the most destructive invasive species in the Great Lakes include the common carp, round goby, ruffe, and zebra mussel from the Caspian Sea and the sea lamprey and zebra mussel from the northern Atlantic.

Unexpected end to sales tax balkanization?

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The Tribune reports that the Civic Federation will release a report questioning an upcoming (but news-to-me) proposal by several Midwestern states to streamline sales taxes in exchange for collecting taxes on out of state (read: catalog and Internet) purchases. The end of the article points out that the micro taxes that add up to 9.75% for my takeout lunch — but 6% on an identical meal sold just 15 miles away, across the Indiana line — could fall victim to this streamlining. After all, we can’t expect every single online retailer to remember all of the thousands of sales tax rates across the US, right?

Although this might seem to be a nightmarish predicament that will result in huge revenue losses for local governments reliant on local-option sales taxes, one interesting wrinkle arises: what if this “sales tax streamlining” could result in sales tax revenue sharing? Doing so would iron out local inefficiencies, like retail sales “leaking” to lower tax jurisdictions or fiscal zoning that lures big box stores solely for the resulting sales tax revenue.

I’ll never live blog

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but a roundup of points Kerry failed to make tonight:
– Bush provided a great opening on drug reimportation by referencing “working with Canada” on the flu vaccine. Yes, Kerry eventually got to reimportation, but not right when it counted.
– On the deficit, Bush “has a plan” but has never referenced exactly what it is; instead, he’s just attacked Kerry’s plan (which we’ve gone over before). Kerry should point out that Bush’s “plan” involves draconian 80% cuts in almost every government service known to mankind.
– To counter Bush’s warm words on education, roll out what Howard Dean called “the Bush tax”: the cuts in education and services and hikes in state taxes and fees (most especially college tuition). Where the feds have expanded programs by a bit, the states have already pulled out the rug — and Bush, instead of offering revenue sharing, again chose tax cuts for the rich.
– “98 times” is just wrong. Just call him out on “fuzzy math” and point out a few ways in which it double-counts votes.
– The “marriage protection amendment” does nothing of the sort. It’s an attempt to create a wedge issue, plain and simple, since this nonsense about state courts forcing other states to accept marriages is just silly.
– “Activist judges” is another right-wing trope. Didn’t Bush land his job thanks to some activist judges?
– Bush is bringing up the same old “compassionate conservative” tropes he did in 2000, only now he’s had four years to not act on them. Great opening to talk about the divisiveness, like…
– Much of the post-2001 divisiveness stems from Bush’s rush to war in Iraq and other actions from the administration. Kerry was right to pin the blame on the House leadership, but the President’s arrogance is more fundamentally at fault.
– HSAs are simply bad policy: “market reforms” for health care services don’t make sense, since health care is almost the definition of a market riddled with imperfect information. (If I had perfect information about health care, what use would I have for a doctor?) Besides, HSAs undermine the entire premise of health insurance — to spread the risks, to encourage preventive care, and to reduce costs for the poor — while opening up a huge new tax break for the rich. I know it’s not at all sound-bite-able, but someone has to make a cogent critique of these before they become too common.

Casino spots

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The Trib is reporting that Block 37 has arisen as a potential location for a casino, along with McCormick Place East (Lakeside Center). If anything, McCormick North is more optimally designed for a casino: a giant, windowless box. McCormick East may be woefully underused, but the monumental curtainwall of the current building should be maintained. (One good reason to not open McCormick East for 24-hour operation is migratory bird fatalities: until McPier began turning off the building’s nighttime lights a few years back, its lakeside facade lured hundreds of birds each year to their deaths. Birds don’t understand glass [why should they?] and fly full speed into the wall, breaking their necks. Good for the Field Museum, which has cabinets filled with the resulting [stuffed] carcasses; not so good for the birds.)

Of course, maybe the gaming hall could fit into the giant masonry podium underneath. I have no idea what’s inside that bunker, besides some very long ramps to ground level.

And where would a casino fit at Block 37? Underground? Casinos don’t like multistory layouts, even less than big box retailers.

Speaking of which, the frequent media complaints about few identified tenants strike me as silly. Mills has relationships with literally thousands of tenants and specialty shop space in the last proposals was already spoken for by a variety of “lifestyle” chains. Sure, a few of the bigger users–Office Depot, Barnes & Noble — have tired of waiting and found other locations on State. But being across from Field’s flagship, in the heart of the second largest office market in the country, will get tenants on board.

Office supplies downtown

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Finally, both Staples and Office Depot have realized that their office products superstores can fit inside the Loop. Both have operated downtown stores elsewhere for years, but have recently signed leases in the State-Wabash corridor (oddly, not the real center of office space but likely the only area with large enough retail floorplates): Staples in the old Sym’s space at Wabash & Washington and Office Depot in the Toys ‘R’ Us space on State south of Madison.

Harper Court is moving up

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The Hyde Park shopping center originally built to keep an artist presence in the face of urban renewal (but subsequently purchased by the university) will gain two new entertainment tenants: the long promised Checkerboard Lounge, “price out” of Bronzeville (only in Dorothy Tillman’s world could that happen) and a generically named restaurant from KDK, impresario of the Randolph and Wabash restaurant districts. Together with Bar Louie and the bowling alley, the result is that Hyde Park now has more than 133% more places to drink now than it did just three years ago.

Arrogance is okay

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A nice quote from Barack Obama on Bush, from a speech given to a crowd in Wisconsin (?): “I mean, it’s one thing that somebody’s wrong and they know they’re wrong. Or it’s one thing if they’re arrogant but they’re right all the time. But when they’re arrogant and wrong all the time, that’s a problem.” [WaPo]