Move for the Kids 5k Run/Walk is an inspirational fundraising event to benefit the patients and families at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. On May 19, 2013, participants will start and finish at historic Soldier Field and travel along Chicago’s beautiful lakefront path.

We hope you will join us for this family friendly, inspirational event and help spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues. There are several ways you can get involved.  See here for more information.

“People underestimate the economic impact that flows from apartment buildings,” says Stephen S. Fuller, an academic researcher at George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis who conducted the study.

“It’s always that first splash of new construction that gets the attention,” Fuller notes. “No one pays attention to ongoing maintenance or to the people who live in these properties. By not paying attention to them and the long-term effect they have, people under­estimate their importance to the overall economy.”

Multifamily construction contributed $42.5 billion to the ­national economy, and construction spending spurred $12.7 billion in personal earnings, while supporting roughly 324,000 jobs, in 2011. That’s nothing to sneeze at. But resident spending on goods and services produces an economic contribution nearly 21 times greater than construction.

Apartment resident spending drove nearly 80 percent of apartments’ total contribution to the national economy in 2011 and sustained nearly 90 percent of the total jobs supported by apartments. In 2011, the country’s 35 million apartment residents contributed $885.2 billion to the national economy. Renter spending also generated $222.0 billion in additional personal earnings and supported 22.8 million jobs during the year.

“Renters spend more of their income locally than home­owners,” Fuller points out. “These renter households generate a lot of jobs that ordinarily wouldn’t be associated with the apartment ­industry.”

Based on average spending and after-tax earnings, apartment residents had $628.5 billion in disposable income in 2011. Nearly three-quarters of that amount, or $421.5 billion, was spent on consumer goods and services produced in the United States.

Apartment residents spent a significant portion of those available dollars on housing, food, and transportation—their three largest expenditures—followed by utilities, fuels, and public services; apparel and services; and entertainment. Roughly 70 percent of the dollars residents spent on those items stayed within the local economy.

In addition, the industry spent $67.9 billion on apartment operations in 2011. And that spending ­directly supported local employment and business ­activities across four main categories: utilities; repairs and maintenance; management; and building services, including materials and labor costs.

When the indirect effects of that spending are factored in, the operation and maintenance of the nation’s entire stock of apartments had a total economic contribution of $182.6 billion in 2011.

To read the article in its entirety, visit http://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/apartments/chain-reaction.aspx

“Across the study regions, the ‘transit shed’ outperformed the region as a whole by 41.6 percent,” according to the report, prepared by the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago. The “transit shed” was defined as areas within a half mile of fixed-guideway transit stations, including both rail and bus rapid transit. While the transit sheds performed better than their regions in every region study, the areas outside of the transit shed underperformed.

FROM: BETTER! TOWNS AND CITIES March 26, 2013

A recent blog from Twin Cities Sidewalks highlights growing evidence that vehicle miles may have peaked. If the right policies are put in place, vehicle miles can go down even as the population and economy rises. The graph dramatically shows the historical trends of vehicle miles traveled in the US and how they have changed in recent years. Young adults, who may set the direction for generations to come, are on a steep downward trajectory. After that graph came out, the Federal Highway Administration reported that only 67 percent of 16-to-24 year olds had driver’s licenses in 2011, the lowest level since statistics have been kept. For cities, where more alternative transportation options are available, the trend is potentially stronger: from 2005 to 2009, as the population of Washington, DC, grew by 15,000, car registrations in the District dropped by 15,000, according to Jeff Speck in Walkable City. This adds impetus to getting rid of policies like minimum parking requirements (why turn America into even more of a parking lot than it already is?). Let’s, instead, go with the flow and spend more on walking, biking, and mass transit, and less on expanding highway capacity for cars that likely will not be there.

McCaffery Interests, along with donors, staff, elected officials and hundreds of supporters, were on hand as Children’s Memorial Hospital officially cut the ribbon on their new facility, the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. A very happy day!

fore dawn Saturday, the first of about 150 of the city’s smallest, sickest patients will be loaded into ambulances in the loading bay at Children’s Memorial on Lincoln and Fullerton, where they’ll begin a 31/2-mile trek south.

They’ll be accompanied by paramedics, nurses, a parent and loads of fragile medical equipment that’s not designed to be stuffed into an ambulance and moved.

Hospital officials have set aside up to 25 ambulances for the move, which officials estimate will take 10 to 18 hours to complete.

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The hospital expects to move up to 200 patients, one by one in an ambulance, with the most sick children and babies having a team of up to six people on board, including a Children’s nurse, a doctor and paramedics.

The patient move starts at 6 a.m. June 9, and it’s expected to last anywhere from 10 to 18 hours, as ambulances make the trip east on Fullerton Avenue and then south on Lake Shore Drive. Fullerton will be closed off to normal traffic during the patient move, but — with the exceptions of cones along the on-ramp.

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