It’s a legitimate question. And the most definitive answer I can give you right now is, I don’t really know. If you still want to see the content I used to post semi-regularly here, I hope you follow me at Chicago YIMBY. I post seven days a week there, sometimes more than once a day, but Building Up Chicago has been idle since January.

I put BUC in mothballs because I get paid as a freelancer at YIMBY. Not enough to buy a yacht, but anything is more than what I collected from doing this blog. It’s a fun hobby when it’s fun; when it’s no longer fun, it’s work. And when work doesn’t earn income, it becomes a waste of time. I tried to solicit donations a few times, and I’m sorry I did that; I realize that isn’t why folks came to the website.

One reason I can’t actively post here is because I allowed the domain to expire; I’m now back to the basic WordPress plan, which means I’m over (WAY over) my allotted storage space for photos. So I can’t upload a single new photo to this blog; the banner photo of the tower crane at 400 Lake Shore you see is an old image from that crane’s infancy. It also became too difficult to decide what to posy on YIMBY and what to keep here. It’s simply less confusing to post only at YIMBY and not worry about stepping on my own toes.

I still hope to reactivate Building Up Chicago someday, but it won’t be until I have the disposable income (or an angel investor) to put into it. But my experience at Chicago YIMBY has given me some ideas as to how I’d go about it. Posting every day, often more than once, means I can’t just focus on tower cranes anymore. There is daily development news in Chicago, form two-story two-flats to long-stalled supertalls.

When I come back to BUC, I hope it will be full time. There’s enough happening in town (that’s right, naysayers; Chicago IS still building) to post from two to ten articles a day, and this is how I’d do it:

Permits are entered into the Chicago Data Portal Monday through Friday. They’re published Tuesday through Saturday, so I would spend those five days writing posts about every compelling permit I could find that was issued the previous day. And only I have final say on what “compelling” means. Slow days mean I can go out in the afternoon and check on the bearby construction sites.

Since there are no new permits to see on Sunday and Monday, those would be my shooting days. Sundays are great for checking out the smaller job sites anyway; since I have to get up close to those, I can stick my camera (or phone) through or over the fence without it being in someone’s face while they work. The big jobs know we’re out there watching; cameras don’t bother those crews.

Preferably, those posts would be written from an actual office space that I would need to commute to, at least a couple days a week. That would help limit my distractions (Do I have enough quarters for a load of laundry? I should do the dishes? I should dry the dishes I just washed? Should I put them away? I need to go get a plastic bin for under the bed.)

Of course, if my office space was on a high floor in Salesforce tower, because that’s the office I deserve, then I’d be distracted by the views out over the river. But at least then I’d have distractions I could turn into photo ops.

All of this was just to clear up that there is no clarity on the future of Building Up Chicago, but I’m still here, still interested, and still not ready to let go of it. In the event that WordPress says “Give us money, or your website will disappear” that’s when the ultimate decision will have to be made. And we’ll just see.

Thanks for reading.