Curious City

Mar 26 2025 557 ep. 14 mins 2k

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Ask questions, vote and discover answers about Chicago, the region and its people. From WBEZ.

Arts Education Society & Culture

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Restriction and sanctuary: A look at Chicago mayors’ wildly different approaches to immigrants

Mar 26 2025 7 mins

Chicago is in the national spotlight when it comes to the immigration debate, but that’s nothing new to the mayoral office. We take a look back at how mayors have either embraced or rejected new arrivals.

The Life and Legacy of Alice Hamilton

Mar 19 2025 4 mins

Scientist Alice Hamilton’s investigations into toxins in Chicago’s factories led to some of the first workplace safety laws in the country. She was known for her “shoe leather” epidemiology, wearing out the soles of her shoes from all the trips she made to Chicago homes, factories and even saloons to figure out what was making people sick.

How does honoring the dead impact the environment?

Mar 13 2025 15 mins

How should we decide what happens to our bodies when we die? And what implications does that decision have for the living? It’s common to think a burial at a cemetery is the final resting place for a loved one. But as we heard in our last episode, sometimes the need to progress as a society is in direct conflict with the desire to honor the dead. Today, we talk to one of the lead

Why is there a cemetery at O’Hare Airport?

Mar 12 2025 7 mins

The suburban village of Bensenville has a long history of getting eaten up by development. Resthaven Cemetery is a symbol of what remains.

How one Midwestern community avoids road salt all winter

Mar 06 2025 10 mins

Chicago — like so many other frigid American cities — can’t seem to kick its dependence on road salt. Last episode, we talked about why chloride from salt is harmful to both our natural and built environments. So we spent some time looking around for a cold-weather community that avoids using it altogether. And we found one! A little community way up north: Have you ever take

Could Chicago ever ditch the road salt?

Mar 05 2025 6 mins

Road salt helps us get around safely during snowy, Chicago winters. But salt is corrosive and harmful for the environment. Could the city ever go without road salt?

The First Black-Owned And Operated Airport Was In Robbins

Feb 26 2025 20 mins

The Chicago area played a key role in Black aviation in the early 1900s. The founders of the first Black-owned airport learned to fly in Chicago and went on to teach thousands of others.

“It’s too complicated”: The state of cannabis record expungement in Illinois

Feb 20 2025 11 mins

When Illinois legalized recreational use of marijuana five years ago, it came with a goal to right the wrongs of the war on drugs. “We’re addressing the past harms of discriminatory prosecution of drug laws,” Governor J.B. Pritzker said at the time. Many low level cannabis charges would automatically be expunged and legal aid would be made available.Last episode, we looked at

Illinois has made a lot of money from recreational pot. How’s that money used?

Feb 19 2025 6 mins

The state has made about $500 million in marijuana tax revenue since the state legalized recreational use. Social programs have benefited from those funds, but experts say it won’t last forever.

There’s a delicate alchemy to overturning a wrongful conviction

Feb 13 2025 17 mins

What does it take to get a wrongful conviction overturned?Quite a lot, according to investigative reporter Alison Flowers, who says proving innocence is much more difficult than proving guilt. She has investigated the cases of many wrongfully convicted individuals, including that of Chicagoan Robert Johnson. In our last episode, Invisible Institute reporter Erisa Apantaku explained