The February Issue Of Chicago Magazine

I just finished reading the February issue of Chicago Magazine. The cover story is titled The Savvy Parent's Guide to Raising Kids in Chicago, which, not having children, did not sound too interesting to me. However, I did enjoy reading about Chicago's Best Bar for Babies, which turns out to be Rockwell's Neighborhood Grill, located in the Ravenswood Gardens neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. The article was written by a new father in the first days of parenthood, and tells how he and his wive, along with their 2-month-old baby in a stroller, found Rockwell's, with its large patio filled with screaming kids running around, strollers parked to the side, and "exhausted parents silently chugging craft beers." The 312 section's Listing of the Month is an 8,360 square-foot Evanston mansion built in 1912, five blocks from Lake Michigan, which comes with a 2-bedroom coach house, for sale for just under $2.5 million. This when here in Denver a modern 3-story house on the east side of Washington Park just went on sale for $9 million. What's wrong with this picture? There is also an article about Chicago's $40 billion debt, and how the city has been kicking it down the road each year through refinancing, risking dropping the city's credit rating down to the point its municipal bonds will be unsellable. I also enjoyed reading speculation in The 312 section about who might run for mayor against current mayor Brandon Johnson, whose popularity is currently in the tank. And surprisingly, there are a number of possible candidates who sound quite competent, including Susana Mendoza, the current Illinois comptroller, who reduced the state's backlog of unpaid bills from $16.7 billion to under $3 billion. Does she sound like a possibility or what? All in all, another pretty interesting issue.