"2-car acc @ State & Lake, both drivers injred" That short, hastily typed text message or tweet contains a lot of information that police, emergency responders, news organizations and drivers could use. A human observer could quickly identify that it refers to an auto accident, a medical emergency, and a street intersection in Chicago. But [...]

Boarded up buildings and overgrown lots have plagued Chicago's low-income neighborhoods for decades. Over the past five years, however, vacant and abandoned properties have spread beyond the inner city and into the suburbs, disrupting formerly stable working and middle class communities and prompting the creation of a county-wide land bank, a new tool for fighting [...]