Three more portals for Smart Communities

The three Southwest neighborhoods in Chicago's Smart Communities program launched their portals yesterday, creating a wide new avenue for interaction among residents, businesses and organizations.

They are works in progress, with some empty spaces yet to fill, but already the portals offer new stories and photos highlighting activities not easily found elsewhere on the web.

Check them out:
Auburn Gresham: auburngreshamportal.org
Englewood: englewoodportal.org
Chicago Lawn: chicagolawnportal.org

The three sites have automatic cross-links to each other to build connections among the communities, but each is likely to develop its own personality over time. Give them a visit and, if you live or work in one of those areas, submit some information to make the portals better.

Peirce on Daley

Syndicated state and local government columnist Neal Peirce's recent summary of Mayor Daley's legacy on the Citistates site will seem fawning to Daley's critics. There is only a brief mention at the end about patronage and corruption, and no mention at all about the privatization controversies that have plagued the latter part of the mayor's tenure, most particularly the parking meter fiasco. Still, Peirce lends his expertise and a nice balanced account of our city's achievements -- and what's yet to be achieved -- in areas like ties to the global economy, school reform and public housing.

You can judge for yourself at http://citiwire.net/post/2293/