Kari Lydersen
Kari Lydersen is a staff writer out of The Washington Post midwest bureau and also freelances for publications including The Chicago Reporter and The Progressive. She is the author of three books, including “Revolt on Goose Island” (Melville House Press) released in June 2009. She also teaches Community News at Columbia College and teaches youth journalism in a non-profit program. www.karilydersen.com.
Despite Missing Out On NSP2, There’s Still Much Work To Do in Chicago Suburbs
Civic leaders and planners in the south and west Chicago suburbs were disappointed to learn that the regional collaborative proposals submitted by the Chicago...
Emerging from Chicago’s Shadow
Towns long in Chicago’s shadow have sought creative ways
to collaborate for federal funding, while building off existing
partnerships as part of a long-term approach to neighborhood,
and regional, stabilization.
Gary Never Forgot: A Suffering Steel Town Clings to Jackson Legacy
The eyes of the world were focused on Gary, Indiana, in the days following Michael Jackson’s June 25 death. People marveled at the tiny...
Fighting Foreclosure On All Fronts
While national coverage has subsided, a handful of immigrant families in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood are still fighting to stay in their foreclosed apartment building, and their story is simply part of a larger struggle in the country's third-largest city.
Despite Promises of Relief, Foreclosure Crisis Still Escalating
In the Chicago metro area as across the nation, even with various public, private and nonprofit relief efforts underway, the foreclosure crisis continues to...
Fighting Wage Theft
Monday brought the announcement of a record 70,000-plus jobs lost worldwide, from drug companies to automakers and everything in between.
Meanwhile each year millions of...
The Inauguration: View from a Chicago Diner
At the risk of sounding cliché, hope was in the air as thick as the smell of grilling bacon and the steam from oatmeal...
Chicago Factory Occupation Victory Is Only The Beginning
In the past few days we’ve seen news of 3,500 jobs to be lost by the closing of U.S. Steel facilities in Illinois, Michigan...
Foreclosure Nightmare Continues for “Famous” Chicago Renters
Esteban Cruz digs his hands into a big plastic tub of letters and documents bundled and labeled by month.
This mass of paper represents...
Infrastructure Woes or Opportunities?
Anyone who has wasted hours each day commuting to work, sat in traffic for an hour as a freight train inched by, waited endlessly...
Hope…of Curbing Climate Change
When the Environmental Law and Policy Center was founded in Chicago 15 years ago, cell phones that could get clear reception or send images...
Obama’s Chicago: A New Start
It was as if all of Chicago had one big ear-splitting grin Tuesday night. Even hours before polls had closed, people went about their...
Too Young to Vote, But Not Too Young to Engage
The Obama campaign headquarters were bustling five days before the election and two high school journalism students I brought there to report for their...
Renters Still Facing Foreclosure Evictions; Help Arrives, But Is It Enough?
Last week, I wrote about Cook County (Chicago) sheriff Tom Dart angrily suspending evictions of renters from foreclosed buildings; since many of these renters...
Chicago Sheriff Stands up for Renters
Losing a home to foreclosure is a nightmare, causing at least one person — Carlene Balderrama of Massachusetts — to commit suicide in recent...
A Green Job Renaissance?
Even decades after de-industrialization and outsourcing decimated the once-solid, well-paid, empowered blue collar union workforce of the Midwest, jobs are still being lost by...
Alaska’s Pebble Mine Vote the Same Old Catch-22: Jobs or Environment
Much attention has been on Alaska politics lately thanks to John McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, not...
Native Alaskans See Walrus Harvest Disappear with Sea Ice
The effects of climate change have wreaked havoc with Arctic weather conditions that while always extreme and highly changeable, could be read like a book.
Dirty Coal Takes Communities’ Breath Away
The brick smokestack towers above Chicago’s mostly Latino Pilsen neighborhood burns coal to provide electricity for much of the city while puffing out plumes...
Employment as Crime Prevention
With the hottest, often most violent, month of summer still to come, Chicago has logged record numbers of killings of public school students this...