Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · 15h

For the upcoming EVERYTHING CHICAGO symposium on Friday, I’ll be moderating a panel about public space, featuring some of the city’s most important shapers of the public realm. 9:30am! Driehaus museum! Register to attend (or just show up) www.eventbrite.com/e/everything...

Panel description: 9:30 AM — Common Chicago: Public Space
Ideas about transforming shared outdoor environments into spaces for collective life, moderated by journalist and critic Anjulie Rao. Panelists include Chicago practices: Ross Barney Architects, Future Firm, Resolver Studio, Site Design Group, Studio Becker Xu.

4

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · 18h

I stand firmly in my belief that Fort Wayne is a great town where you can still buy a reasonable house for $250k right next to a beautiful bikeable greenway that will take you to both a Saarinen campus and fabulous Burmese food

1 8

Reposted by Anjulie Rao

Daniel Kibblesmith @kibblesmith.com · 10d

Chicago is the greatest city in the world and what’s happening there is making my body physically hot and sore with rage. Every rich dentist in the Ohio exurbs with a barely touched jet ski voted for this because they led poor lives that are now nearly over. Chicago will outlast your boring anger.

6 170 890

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · 21d

I had a baby on Wednesday. Idk. Take the Tylenol.

12 39

Reposted by Anjulie Rao

Kerry Reid (she/her) @kerryreid.bsky.social · Sep 11

We're looking for a new EIC at @chicagoreader.com, so if you know a great candidate, tell them to apply! (To be clear, I have nothing to do with the hiring process.) chicagoreader.com/about/career...

Reader Institute for Community Journalism and Chicago Reader Careers - Chicago Reader

Updated September 4, 2025 Editor in Chief | Sales Representative | Freelance information | Future Internship Opportunities Editor in Chief Independent journalism is the lifeblood of the Chicago Reader...

chicagoreader.com

5 5

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Sep 9

At this point, I wonder if states making childcare free would be akin to mass affordable housing construction in terms of attracting new residents.

4 15

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Sep 3

Everyone’s wondering if or when this charming city might be invaded by masked bozos but in the meantime take a look at the dahlias and zinnias my neighbor planted on her corner

A photograph of a large bush of zinnias and dahlias in bloom on a street corner in Chicago

7 57

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 30

I’m giving myself parental leave from 9/15-10/20. This means, for the first time in a decade, I won’t be publishing a review or big feature about the Chicago Architecture Biennial when it opens. Kinda sad, but openings are for onlookers. I’m in this game for Chicago. So please stay tuned. Xo

10

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 29

I wrote about WEAPONS, a story about community horrors. It’s a fun-scary movie, but while we are currently experiencing waves of our own community “disappearances,” the movie makes us ask who will keep us safe when dark forces arrive.

www.dwell.com/article/weap...?

In “Weapons,” There’s No Community in Suburbia

Set in an upper-middle class enclave where 17 kids disappear, filmmaker Zach Cregger’s latest thriller asks us to confront the notion that small towns breed shared safety.

www.dwell.com

2 9

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 28

Again I chalk the hand-wringing up to the relentless belief that young people aren’t “real people” who don’t already have values, who haven’t been exposed to other ways of thinking. It’s why we will put them in charge of DOGE or tech startups but not take them seriously as students

1

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 28

My low-level two cents but “civil debate” happens all the time, especially in college classrooms (?!) it’s just that young people now have a much more accurate reading of the stakes involved even if they’re personal, familial…likely than not far more broad-reaching than one’s interior experience!

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Aug 28

I will never understand how American elites managed to convince themselves that uncivil debate — not fascism, not impunity and not widespread indifference to facts — is the defining problem of our time.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...

How We Brought Respectful Debate Back to The Harvard Crimson’s Editorial Board

To us, the solution is deceptively simple. Universities should create environments where students with different views must talk to one another routinely and establish ground rules that ensure they do so without distractions or prejudgment.

Illiberalism on college campuses isn’t inevitable. At The Crimson, it took only a few months to radically improve.

1 8

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 26

If you're in Chicago, come to City Lit Books nxt Friday, 9/5, where I'll be in conversation with author (& Oak Park native!) @samkbloch.bsky.social about his new book, SHADE. We'll be chatting about the wild politics of city cooling, greenspace, and more! www.citylitbooks.com/events/33125...

Author Event: Sam Bloch with Anjulie Rao | City Lit Books

This cozy bookstore with staff-curated selections, book clubs, and other events.

www.citylitbooks.com

3 8

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 25

I would read a 5,000-word story about this

Democracy and trains @wingedisis.bsky.social · Aug 25

Anyway, this was particularly striking because we were just talking about mid-baritaria getting killed by Landry as our swan song and he glided right past the environmental costs of the Meta AI data center in north Louisiana, for example, to propose AI making up for the NWS in hurricane prediction

1 3

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 25

Officially, I have begun a very strange process called Assembling A Book Proposal.

13

Reposted by Anjulie Rao

New York Review of Architecture @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social · Aug 24

Working with editorial advisors @zachmortice.bsky.social, @anjulierao.bsky.social , and @katewagner.wehwalt.net and with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago Review of Architecture (ChiRA) will seek to generate erudite, humorous, and hyperlocal writing on the built (and unbuilt) environment.

2 5 48

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 20

Once again, criticism shows people how to look, a way of seeing, a path toward developing one’s own practices. There’s a whole lotta people who would rather you believe that your eyes deceive you, your feelings betray you, that how you experience the world is inconsequential. Don’t give in to them.

Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · Aug 20

it's no coincidence that the role of "helping people understand how to think through what art means" is being eliminated at the same time a bunch of assholes are trying to convince us that art doesn't mean anything

Mo Ryan @moryan.bsky.social · Aug 20

I occasionally copy edited Siskel back in the day at Chi Tribune. Yes. This ongoing diminishment of critics is a travesty.

As @samadams.bsky.social has said, if Ebert and Siskel launched their show now, it would be just two empty chairs. 👎👎

1 14 38

Reposted by Anjulie Rao

◥◤Kriston Capps @kristoncapps.bsky.social · Aug 15

Trump's pledge to "scrape away the filth" in Washington has a historical echo in the Gilded Age–era movement known as City Beautiful. He is remaking some of its ugliest moments: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Trump’s Politics of Urban Disgust

The president’s unprecedented takeover of Washington, DC law enforcement weds a crime crackdown to a gilded vision for remaking the capital.

www.bloomberg.com

1 13 70

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 14

Also your friendly reminder that my mayoral campaign will include revamping the air and water show to feature blimps, hot air balloons, boat rides, zip lines, and surfing.

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 14

I flipped the switch on the ceiling fan just as the military aircrafts flew overhead and have never been so terrified. Happy Air and Water Show weekend to all.

3 1 15

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 14

I flipped the switch on the ceiling fan just as the military aircrafts flew overhead and have never been so terrified. Happy Air and Water Show weekend to all.

1 11

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 13

We haven’t heard from NEOM in a while I wonder how that’s going.

2 15

Reposted by Anjulie Rao

Peter Sterne @petersterne.com · Aug 11

In urban policy, it is considered bad for someone to be rent-burdened (spending at least 30% of their income on rent). But Cuomo's newly proposed law would *require* that people be rent-burdened. Absolutely insane.

New York, NY – Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, candidate for Mayor of New York City, today announced ‘Zohran’s Law,’ a plan to protect the city’s rent-stabilized apartments from being occupied by high-income individauls, ensuring these limited, affordable units go to New Yorkers who actually need them.

Under Cuomo’s proposal, when a rent-stabilized apartment becomes vacant, the incoming individual income would be capped so that the annual rent makes up at least 30 percent of that income. For example, if an apartment rents for $2,500 a month ($30,000 per year), the new tenant’s income could not exceed $100,000.

New York City is in the grip of a housing emergency. The city does not have enough units, and the drastically low vacancy rate is driving up prices, squeezing families, and forcing many to leave in record numbers.

89 970 3.7K

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 11

This is the encouragement I need! Thank you!

2 2

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 11

There are too many people in my life insisting that I’ll start driving again once I have a kid. No amount of child fatalities in car wrecks data convince them otherwise, so now I’m just acting purely out of spite and want reccs for e-bikes and easy carriers to drag my screaming infant onto the bus.

5 16

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Aug 10

Seeing the Obama Center rising from the Point is startling. Not so much that it’s ugly, but it really does begin to resemble some type of magnificent tomb; a crushing weight that says very little…but somehow so loudly.

The Obama center rising from Promontory Point, blue skies, with the lake and beachfront in the foreground

10 13 93

Anjulie Rao @anjulierao.bsky.social · Jul 31

I'm not sold, still, on the idea that preservation here would be an affordable housing win; however an older home might sell for less. An older home that kept its two-flat arrangement might then also constitute some other type of affordability. Nothing is being won with a tear-down.

2