Welcome to Flyover Blues, a site for the intersection of the set of people who find Chicago politics interesting and the set of people who find playing around with political datasets — or, if you prefer, the somewhat old-fashioned computer-assisted reporting
— interesting (or, maybe, if I'm any good at it, their union — still not so terribly many people, alas).
But perhaps there are a few of you out there — certainly, as the home of EveryBlock, Chicago is not entirely bereft of people doing interesting things with municipal data. And recent tentative steps toward transparency (by Chicago standards) kindle in me a very little optimism that this sort of data might become easier to come by in the future than it is now — more on this in the next few days.
Along similar lines, I hope also to cover the state of access to local and state data and the use of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (a very nice bit of legislation which, in Cook County, is honored largely in the breach) — my own and others'.
Please excuse the possibly erratic changes you'll see in the site over the next couple of days, as its design and implementation is finished up.