Most of what I do is funny. Being a natural smart aleck and a natural female (this shouldn’t make a difference, and I’m not sure why it does), I tend to get sucked into projects and internships that orbit around some form of nerdy pop culture– books, or music, or video games. While I enjoy getting paid to be snotty and opinionated, my true interest lies in investigative reporting, in being snotty and opinionated *and* informative, hopefully bringing attention to something which attention tends to gloss over. Luckily for me, Chicago is the perfect city for things that get ignored.

My current project centers on Bronzeville, specifically the neighborhood you’re in when you get off Sox-35th on the Red Line. “Neighborhood” is a loose term– at the moment it’s mostly vacant lots. But now that it’s been tagged as the site of Chicago’s future “Olympic Village” (and construction will occur whether we get the bid or not), residents are torn between hope for renovation and fear for almost inevitable displacement. Which is why, in classic Chi-town fashion, they’re fighting back. I’ll be in the thick of it and other West/South Side neighborhoods as they play tug-of-war with gentrification, economics and City Hall. I’ll be interviewing people on the street, people in the Hall– I’ll be digging through files and harassing officials and charting the fight every step of the way.

Sounds like fun, no?