High Rise Boomlet Bringing Good and Bad to Chicago

"Nearly three years after the financial crisis froze the skyline in place and transformed the grandiose dream of the Chicago Spire into an embarrassing hole in the ground, the city is gearing up for a high-rise apartment building boom - or boomlet, depending how big this much-ballyhooed surge of construction really turns out to be.

The renewed activity is good news for the recession-battered building trades and a city whose books are splattered with red ink. But for the urban environment, the likely outcome has all the makings of a typical Chicago construction surge -- equal parts enthralling and exasperating."

Though some of the projects show promise, others suffer from the same design flaws and economic miscalculations that would repeat the mistakes of the recent past, according to this piece from the Chicago Tribune.