Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸

@jmisci

Energy efficiency industry employee and former ADU resident. Here to stay updated on climate, energy, urbanism, and weather. I post frequently about Chicago!

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Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 15d

No joke, this scene appeared 15 minutes after I took the first photo Chicago you are truly magnificent

Navy pier Ferris wheel with moon rising in distance

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 15d

living in Chicago is incredible because sometimes you just stumble across a Scene of Epic Proportions

Big tall ship in front of huge cumulonimbus clouds at golden hour

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 15d

Saw this a couple of weeks ago at North Ave / DLSD. The lime scooter was almost completely underwater! We’re overdue for a DLSD renovation. Our fossil-fuel-warmed atmosphere can now dump so much more water than what we designed our cities for.

Pedestrian tunnel almost wholly underwater

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 16d

For 4 glorious months, Chicago has the best urban beaches in the country Chiami!

People at a beach with the Chicago skyline in the back

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 19d

Look at this. Lmao. I wasn’t kidding when I say hundreds!

Tons of blue bikes stacked next to station

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 19d

First time seeing the new Divvy dock at North Ave beach — what a godsend. For the 4 years I’ve played volleyball here, each night I see dozens (if not HUNDREDS) of divvy bikes overflowing the lakefront path and the closest station. Must have been a nightmare for staff to deal with!

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 21d

Civic action of the day: I just submitted this feedback on CTA’s website. (Squeaky wheel gets the grease!) In short, CTA should have a text hotline to report issues. Nobody wants to press the EMERGENCY button if they’re in an uncomfortable situation on the train. And the chatbot is beyond useless.

The CTA needs a text-message based hotline to report issues.
Today, I heard an announcement on the train platform that if you see something wrong, you should either tell an employee or press the emergency button.
These are both bad ideas. And the online chatbot is also useless.
Let's say you're on a train, and someone starts yelling at you unprovoked. You don't want to press the emergency button because this might aggravate that person. But you also can't tell any CTA employees because there are none in your train car, and you don't want to get off at the next stop.
There needs to be a discreet way to report a bad situation. And it must connect to a human, not a chatbot. (I've reported incidents via chatbot plenty of times and have never seen any help.)
The obvious answer is to have a text-message based reporting system. Plenty of cities do this; you can't go 60 seconds on a London tube ride without seeing or hearing the phrase "message 6-101-6 to report something wrong. See it, say it, sorted." Just copy their idea there's no penalty for plagiarism!
There are many situations in which I would use this option. Maybe someone is smoking, or I see what could be human trafficking. These aren't necessarily emergencies, and I don't want to stop the train with the emergency button so the conductor can walk back to fix the problem. But there needs to be a quicker response than what is currently offered.
I understand that the NITA legislation entails changes to CTA operations. Ideally, this hotline would be implemented alongside the task force's other recommendations.
Whoever runs the hotline should have direct communication with conductors, police, transit ambassadors, and emergency services. Please roll out the hotline ASAP, and don't procrastinate with a pilot phase.
Thank you for your consideration!

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 22d

Unfortunately, this Tribune article from 1986 suggests that the union was primarily opposed because they wanted to capture more business. I don’t think the “functional reason” stands up to scrutiny. But I’m not an expert, so open to other considerations! www.chicagotribune.com/1986/04/09/m...

The plumbers union has expressed only minor opposition to banning the use of lead piping from city mains to the structures. The installation of such piping, for all practical purposes, would continue to be done by licensed union plumbers.
But the unions are expected to use all their political muscle to block any measure allowing plastic plumbing in homes or apartments up to four floors.
Unions argue that plastic is dangerous because of high levels of toxicity in fires. Privately, plumbers fear the use of plastic materials will stimulate do-it-yourself plumbing by homeowners or cut down the time involved in a job and, consequently, the income of union plumbers.

Metal piping-especially if it has soldered fit-tings, a requirement the unions would want in any new ordinance-can be virtually impossible for the untrained to install.
Plastic piping, on the other hand, is lighter, much easier to install and less expensive. Such piping is used in homes throughout the nation and in many Chicago suburbs.
Homeowners already can perform minor plumbing without a city permit, but pipe replacements or plumbing rehab work require a permit and must comply with codes that allow only the use of lead or copper piping.
James McCarthy, business manager of Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union Local 130, said, " My union has always been opposed to plastic for reasons of safety and longevity."

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 22d

They weren’t thinking that long term. These decisions were being made in the 30s through the 80s. The last passage is from 1986! They were primarily thinking about short term gain.

In return, Chicago plumbers enthusiastically promoted the industry - as was seen in an article written for the industry's Lead magazine at the time.
"I am happy to say that the lead industry [.] has cooperated fully with the plumber to strengthen and improve plumbing ordinances all over the country," John J Calnan, a Chicago plumber, wrote in a piece for Lead magazine in 1934.
Within a few years, Lead magazine published an article commending Chicago city officials for allowing only lead service lines in the city's code.
The support for lead lines was cemented in the 1950s, as the plumbers union became particularly powerful in the city, according to reporting by Chicago broadcaster WBEZ. The union's leader, Stephen Bailey, marshaled hundreds of thousands of labor votes to help elect his boyhood friend, Mayor Richard J Daley, who remained in office until the mid-1970S.

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 23d

Never forget that the Lead Industries Association and the Chicago plumbers union should have been put on trial for crimes against humanity. Their greed is the single reason why generations of Chicagoans were (and continue to be) poisoned.

In 1986, Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, tried to buck the union. He proposed taking the lead requirement out of the code, after hearing from the health department that 1,644 children in the city were suffering from high levels of lead in their blood.
By then every other major city in the nation had banned lead pipes and Ballanco's engineering organization was urging Chicago to adopt a model city code that excluded lead as well.
But the plumbers' union stood its ground and opposed the measure, and thus it failed to win approval from the city's aldermen.
"Lead [pipes] have proven over a long time to do the job they were designed to do," Jim McCarthy, the union's business manager, told the Chicago Tribune at the time. "I'm hard-pressed to understand why people are talking about lead poisoning. We've had lead pipe in the water system here for 100 years."

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 26d

You see ripple effects everywhere. Empty classrooms. Understaffed businesses. Hospitals with too many patients and not enough nurses. But somehow Springfield has chosen to ignore the problem. They think it’s fine to let every town across the state ban duplexes & granny flats.

Article: 100 Students in a School Meant for 1,000: Inside Chicago's Refusal to Deal With Its Nearly Empty
Schools
by Mila Koumpilova, Chalkbeat, and Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica
Co-published with Chalkbeat
June 13, 2025, 5:00 am

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 26d

Why is housing so expensive? The main reason: almost every town in the state started to ban everything other than McMansions. Common styles of apartments and starter homes (duplexes, ADUs, four-flats) were made illegal decades ago, and we’re seeing the consequences now.

Many big homes in the suburbs. They all look the same and there are few natural areas or trees

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 26d

IL employers can’t find enough workers. State legislators passed 2 laws to lower requirements for students entering the workforce. But this doesn’t change the fact that IL’s students are dwindling 3x FASTER than other states! They’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.🧵

Chicago Tribune
Editorial: Illinois' population is growing again. But we're losing our children.
2 weeks ago

Chicago Magazine
Fighting the Losing Population
Battle
Feb 23, 2026

Governing
Illinois Is Nation's Biggest Loser of Younger Population

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· 27d

It’s a 100°+ heat index day, and the Clinton St bike lanes are still packed Such a missed opportunity that we haven’t done this in more places. There are dozens of streets that have a similar layout.

Double sided protected bike lane with many people biking

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 10

Need more though! I’m a fan of the Western upzoning but wish there was more focus on non-arterial streets. I’d love to see my area around SW Lakeview upzoned from RS-3, but I have genuine doubts that it would happen in the next 20 years due to NIMBYism.

Map from Jeremy Glover showing south Lakeview neighbors current zoning, with many existing multifamily homes in areas where they’re nonconforming with zoning

Map by Steven Vance

2-to-4 flats legend
Red = illegal to build today
Blue= legal to build today

Most areas near lakefront are blue, but many further away are red. I circled an area of South Lakeview Neighbors that is all red

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 8

Not to rub salt on the wound but this is a tiktok post from one of the Metra board members that Brandon Johnson just re-nominated. Just pure left-NIMBYism So I am not expecting much upzoning or TOD effort from Metra anytime soon (unless it’s 100% affordable and therefore unsustainable)

TikTok text:

“This is not what housing justice looks like. Thisis what racist gentrification looks like and we need to downzone more land to guarantee affordable housing in future
development.”

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 8

Over 100 people lined up this morning at 6:30am for the grand opening of the new Colectivo on Southport (former location of Schoolyard Tavern)

Lots of people in line under morning sun through the trees

Coffee shop interior - green hues and wood tables next to open window

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 8

Perfect Tuesday night: Ratatouille in Millennium Park

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 7

From a friend:

ComEd PTS Summer Hours Alert 7/3, you earned $3 by reducing peak electricity and grid strain.
Thanks! Txt STOP to stop ALL
ComEd txts.

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 4

Happy Independence Day! Our country isn’t perfect, but I’m proud to fly our flag. I encourage you to celebrate the good that America has to offer. We invented National Parks. We beat the Confederacy and the Nazis. We landed on the moon. We legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. And so much more.

An Apollo photograph showing an astronaut on the moon with the the American flag

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 3

It makes me sad thinking about all of the people who will never experience Chicago in the summertime. They have no idea what they’re missing out on.

Chicago skyline behind beach volleyball courts. There is a ferocious thunderstorm lit by the golden hour sun to the left.

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 1

Yeah, agreed. I think the broader problem relevant to me personally is that Chicagoland neighborhoods aren’t just race-segregated. They’re also age-segregated. Old Town is a huge destination for college grads. Most young residents will move away before they’re 35.

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 1

Here’s Gerri’s caption. I appreciate how much effort went into this work of art. Also, interesting that the photo was taken on 7-2-2025, almost exactly a year ago. Now I know late June/early July is peak firefly season here.

gerriwhitley: summer nights lit by fireflies
bioluminescence is so incredible, I just stand in awe of nature and watch these tiny creatures create light to find each other.
I've had this idea in my head for several years, I wanted to capture a bunch of fireflies with the city skyline. I finally found the right spot, I was at Montrose in the natural area the night before I captured these and saw the fireflies. When I got home, I planned this shot and returned the next night.
this represents about 2 hours of shooting, creating over 1700 images blended to create this composite view.
Countless mosquito bites and weeks of editing, I captured the photos on July 2nd and have been steadily working on this since then.

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jul 1

Leigh’s tweet reminds me of this PHENOMENAL photo taken by Gerri Whitley at Montrose Point last year. It took my breath away when I first saw it. Such a creative way to highlight Chicago’s motto of Urbs In Horto (city in a garden)

Long exposure photo of many fireflies in front of chicago skyline

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jun 30

It’s becoming clear to me that if you’re Gen Z and want to buy a home in Chicagoland, you have 3 options: 1. Wait until your empty nester parents die so you can inherit their home + assets 2. Move away from friends & family and accept an hour long commute 3. Make over $200k/year

Chicago housing market defies national downdrafts as prices hit another high
＜ Share
This house on Wille Street in Mount Prospect sold for a little more than $863,000 in May. It was listed with an @properties Christie's International Real Estate agent. (@properties Christie's International Real Estate)
g2) By Dennis Rodkin June 30, 2026, 11:50 AM CDT
For the third month in a row, home prices in Chicago reached record highs in May, while the broader national market has seen prices barely lifting above year-ago levels.
It's the latest chapter in a now long-running story of the Chicago-area housing market doing its own thing. That's rarely been more clear than it is in this month's roundup of housing market data, which shows Chicago tightening where other major cities are getting looser (inventory) and rising where many of them are falling (prices.)
Home prices soar here but flatten nationwide
In Chicago, the median price of homes sold in May was up 7.7% from the same time last year, according to data released June 25 by Illinois Realtors.

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jun 26

Lakeview coffee news: the upcoming Colectivo on Southport/School now has SIGNAGE

A blue coffee shop has the text COLECTIVO and COFFEE written above front door. There is a bicyclist with a child riding by

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jun 24

Full picture

The same flyers in previous post but on top of each other on tree

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jun 24

Seen in Lakeview. NIMBYs are mad about a potential zoning change for a 28 unit building located 2 blocks from a CTA train station. Please call Alderman Lawson and tell him to push for even more than 28 units!

NO TO OVER-ZONING AT 1040 W. BELMONT
(Giordano's)
STOP
HIGH BUILDINGS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Protect Our Lakeview
Community Character &
Property Values
Dear Neighbors on Kenmore and Seminary Streets,
A major zoning change has been requested for 1040 W. Belmont Ave. (currently the single-story Giordano's Pizzeria), and it directly impacts our blocks. Local developers are seeking a permanent up-zoning from B3-2 to B3-5.
This change is requested specifically to bypass our neighborhood's standard 50-foot height limit so they can construct a massive 5-story, 64-to-76-foot tall concrete and brick block extending right out toward our doorsteps.
Why We Must Stop This Up-Zoning:
• Extremes in Height & Scale: The developer claims this massive footprint fits the neighborhood because "other 5-floor buildings exist." This is misleading.
Belmont is overwhelmingly characterized by 3 and 4 floor buildings. Placing a towering 64+ foot structure here shatters the historic architectural scale of our immediate blocks (a typical 3-4 floor building reaches 40ft. on average).
Examples of construction heights within zoning limits in our neighborhood:
3250 Clark: 44ft, 1039 Belmont 50ft, 1138 Belmont 51ft, 1218 Belmont 44ft
• Severe Density Impact: The proposal comes into our immediate space with 28 residential units packed into a mid-block property. While transit-oriented development and affordable housing are noble goals on paper, exploiting those attributes to maximize developer profit with an out-sized, dense complex goes too far.
• Detrimental to Property Values: Erecting a massive, towering wall of concrete right outside our residential homes will permanently block natural light, increase alley congestion (via the proposed 6 parking spaces and intensive delivery/trash traffic), and ultimately degrade the property values and quality of life for everyone

We Support Reasonable Growth-Not Extreme Variances
We do not oppose development, but we strongly oppose a zoning variance that ignores the neighborhood framework just to maximize density at our expense. The developer can build a beautiful, transit-oriented project within the existing B3-2 zoning rules that respect our 50-foot standard, such as multiple other developments in Belmont and Lakeview How to Make Your Voice Heard:
Alderman Bennett Lawson (44th Ward) is actively collecting neighborhood feedback before this goes to the City Council Zoning Committee. We need a united front to protect our community.
Full details of project here:
https://www.44thward.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/1040-Belmont-Zoning-
Submittal-1.pdf
Please scan the QR code below / visit the link to sign our neighborhood coalition petition.
Your signature will be directly forwarded to the 44th
Ward Alderman's office.
Questions or want to get involved?
Contact your neighbors at:
Kenmore.Seminary.Neighbors@gmail.com

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jun 18

Chicago River appreciation post

Chicago River with a water taxi and people strolling

Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸@jmisci· Jun 17

“I feel like this could be a series for people in different wards calling their aldermen so there’s more focus on them & accountability” and this exchange: