iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 21/09/2026

I suspect this code section will become particularly important. Seemingly, Cook Co (only county larger than 3M) pays itself the penalty!

Sec. 20-145.
Penalty for failure to make a timely distribution.
Any county
collector who wilfully fails to pay over the amount of taxes due and payable at
the time or times required by Section 20-140, shall be subject to a penalty at
the rate of 0.1% per day on the amount unpaid, from the time the
amount becomes due and payable until it is paid. The sureties on the official
bond of the collector shall be liable for the payment of the penalty. The
penalty may be recovered in a civil action against the collector and his or her
sureties, in the name of the People of the State of Illinois, in any court of
competent jurisdiction. The amount of the penalty, when recovered, shall be
paid (i) in counties with less than 3,000,000 inhabitants, to the proper
authorities for whom the tax was collected and (ii) in counties with 3,000,000
or more inhabitants, into the county treasury.

(Source: P.A. 87-1119; 88-455; incorporates 88-45; 88-670, eff. 12-2-94.)

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 16/09/2026

What are we here to do is a fantastic question to constantly ask yourself when in academia. aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/

In a listening session with instructors, we learned that some were considering using AI agents as research assistants instead of hiring undergraduates as UROPs. One can see the case for speed and efficient use of resources (especially now, when research resources are so constrained). But if those criteria come to dominate our decisions, we all have to ask, “What is it that we are here together to do?”

As a community, we need to keep in mind that although research is central to MIT’s mission, it’s more than an end in itself; on our campus, research is also an apprenticeship, a means of training the next generation of researchers to continue our work and drive our fields of inquiry forward. Using research as an opportunity for learning-by-doing may produce seeming “inefficiencies,” but that’s a feature, not a bug.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 15/09/2026

If homeowners are most sensitive to changes (rather than levels), then we're about to exit the most turbulent time. PT levies will have been rising since 2023 (on 2020 data).

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 08/09/2026

And that entire project was mostly derived from me reading older work on the costs of sprawl and trying to determine the implications of literally the linked image (see highlights, from Sunny Ladd's work in the early 90s).

The most widely cited study on this topic, the Real Estate Research Corporation's (1974) study, The Costs of Sprawl, reports significant savings for the local public sector from high-density planned development . Using detailed data from The Costs of Sprawl, Downing and Gustely (1977) find that, compared to low-density development, high-density development significantly reduces both the capital and operating costs of the police, fire and solid waste collection and disposal services, water supply, sanitary dewers and storm sewers, but not schools . These findings, however, are based on the assumption of a given number of people and a fixed amount of land which produce a constant average density (see Windsor, 1979) ; indeed, the 'high-density' development might more accurately be labelled 'compact development plus open space' . In addition, the findings focus quite narrowly on the costs of servicing the residential site alone with little attention to the costs of providing public services such as roads for all the activities, such as jobs, shopping and relaxation, that accompany residential

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 05/09/2026

I love these because they seem like magic. For the record, I spent my entire childhood in…Virginia, Florida, and Georgia (in that order with a very brief interlude in AZ to ensure my southern accent disappeared). And then moved to Philly… Nailed it.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 04/09/2026

Perhaps more interesting.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 04/09/2026

I have not generated this figure since 2024 when the two sectors were quite similar. And now they are not.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 01/09/2026

The base year matter quite a bit. 2005 was an up year for the state, so most fair worse in the out years. But the overall point stands. Collectively, enrollment is net negative over the period.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 01/09/2026

If you teach in the midwest and want to know where all your students went.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 01/09/2026

Fun fact: if you do this for the southern region, the y-axis scale jumps to max of 150%.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 31/08/2026

Only shows up on the main Blog page.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 28/08/2026

Frug and Barron were cooking in 2008.

Nevertheless, these four urban futures are not necessarily mutually reinforcing. A city that is focused on its connection to the global economy may pursue policies that make it inhospitable to middle-class families with small children. It might, for example, concentrate on the development of high-end housing for part-time residents who have no kids at all. A city that is dedicated to tourism might make building tourist attractions in the downtown area a high priority at the expense of investment in neighborhoods far from the city center. A city concerned primarily with its relationship to the region might adopt transportation policies designed to serve suburban commuters rather than those directed at renovating its airport, even though the airport might do more to make the city appealing to visitors and to investment from abroad.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 23/08/2026

👀 My wife, a master baker, made cherry cheese danishes. It's wild to watch laminated dough being made by hand—a lot of banging.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 21/08/2026

I will say, though, I found somewhat the opposite to what Pete is arguing at the metro level in my 2021 JUA article. Suburban fragmentation really doesn’t matter much for economic growth, except in the northeast (this is population growth). OA Paper: www.cgoodman.com/research/artic…

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 21/08/2026

I'm not at my office much over the summer, so this was nice to come back to.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 18/08/2026

This sounds incredibly familiar to anyone teaching right now.

In addition to errors, the drafts OLC is reviewing are already becoming wordier, a hallmark of AI’s hand in drafting, according to a person who works with the OLC.
And as AI use increases, more congressional staffers are unable to articulate what they want their bill to accomplish, the person said. Without drafting the text themselves, they are not forced to “learn the issue as deeply,” leaving AI agents to make consequential choices about definitions and wording.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 18/08/2026

I was in an all day meeting yesterday, so I missed this. This. Is. Wild. If it's an academic study, I want to read the IRB docs. How do you explain national-level deception as ok?

Median Strategies Polling Discontinued

Median Strategies has concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls.

All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.

Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 17/08/2026

This is all 329 municipal home rule referenda in IL since 1972 (save 8 that I’m waiting on clerks to get back to me on). The average referenda fails by 4pp.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 11/08/2026

There's a whole (old) cottage industry in this stuff. Also a great source of info on incorporation dates.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 09/08/2026

Well, that was harder than usual. Good to see the townships keeping up with the farm road gravel levels. Though I could have done without the 6" deep, freshly laid stuff.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 07/08/2026

One attempt at this (which I full endorse) is using the Lincoln Institute’s Fiscally Standardized Cities that is designed to do just this comparison. I cherry picked cities (big or regional comparisons). NYC is low, but so are most older, east coast cities,

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 30/07/2026

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 27/07/2026

1921! Seemingly the precursor or progenitor of the current IL Comptroller’s AFR data (certainly no ACFRs in 1921).

Uniform Accounting Classification for Illinois Cities

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 16/07/2026

I’m always the one with bad news. MPA completes, via IPEDS, decline ~14% from AY23 to AY24. github.com/cbgoodman/iped…

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 16/07/2026

This is a very interesting definition from FHFA. Basically non-MSA or less than 30 percent commuting to a metro UA (50K+).

The Duty to Serve Final Rule defines a “rural area” as: (i) a census tract outside of a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) as designated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); or (ii) a census tract in an MSA as designated by OMB that is (A) Outside of the MSA’s Urbanized Areas as designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) Code #1, and outside of tracts with a housing density of more than 64 housing units per square mile in USDA’s RUCA Code #2; or (B) A colonia census tract that does not satisfy paragraphs (i) or (ii)(A) of this definition (effective July 1, 2023). This DTS-specific definition of rural areas, which comes from 12 C.F.R. 1282.1, may lead to statistics which do not align with those reported by other sources. More information is available at https://www.fhfa.gov/programs/duty-to-serve.

Code Classification description
1 Metropolitan core: primary flow is within an urban area of 50,000 or more people (metro UA)
2 Metropolitan high commuting: primary flow is 30 percent or more to a metro UA
3 Metropolitan low commuting: primary flow is 10 percent to 30 percent to a metro UA
4 Micropolitan core: primary flow is within an urban area of 10,000 to 49,999 people (micro UA)
5 Micropolitan high commuting: primary flow is 30 percent or more to a micro UA
6 Micropolitan low commuting: primary flow is 10 percent to 30 percent to a micro UA
7 Small town core: primary flow is within an urban area of 9,999 or fewer people (small town UA)
8 Small town high commuting: primary flow is 30 percent or more to a small town UA
9 Small town low commuting: primary flow is 10 percent to 30 percent to a small town UA
10 Rural area: primary flow is to a tract outside an UA
99 Not coded: census tract is entirely in coastal or inland water bodies, with zero population and zero land area
UA = urban area; primary flow = largest commuting flow from a census tract
Source: USDA, Economic Research Service

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 16/07/2026

Where is something like this for the Chicagoland region? haynesfoundation.org

MAJOR RESEARCH GRANTS

GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY IN THE LOS ANGELES REGION

Our initiative on Governance and Democracy funds high-quality planning and research grants that:

Add significantly to knowledge and understanding of governance and democracy issues in the Los Angeles region (Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties).
Help influence policies and practices.
Offer promise of helping to improve the lives of people and our communities.
We expect researchers to seek opportunities to collaborate with community-based organizations and/or policymakers. We are open to all fields of study and disciplines that address governance and democracy in the Los Angeles region.

SPECIAL FOUNDATION FOCUS: County Governance Reform
The Foundation particularly invites proposals focused on Los Angeles County governance reform, as well as county governance reform across the broader LA region. Applicants can view the full RFP, including suggested topics, here.

Planning grants are made for up to one year for up to $100,000.

Research-to-action grants can be made for up to two years, with a third-year renewable that may be considered. The grant maximum is $250,000 per year. Depending on the nature of the research-to-action project, consideration may be given to a larger award.

NEW!! The Haynes Foundation considers grant applications from public and private universities, university centers, and nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations, including academic partnerships, whose work aligns with the Foundation’s mission and priority areas.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 14/07/2026

I think about this a lot, particularly about AI in govt.

“A computer can never be held accountable; therefore, a computer must never make a management decision.”

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 12/07/2026

Apple's sleep tracking is a little wonky compared to some others, but I don't think I've ever seen a 100, especially after riding 90 miles in the heat yesterday.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 10/07/2026

Corporate needs you to find the difference between these two logos.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 02/07/2026

More fascinating figures from BLS. Through 2023, local gov and local education tracked. And 2024 and on, they don't.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 02/07/2026

You can't park that there, Naperville PD.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 01/07/2026

I sat outside and had hot coffee with a colleague (heat index of 100° F).

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 25/06/2026

This from David Ammons, Municipal Benchmarks Assessing Local Performance and Establishing Community Standards.

The third issue commonly encountered is the choice of which communities to use for comparison. Cities hoping to improve their own performance will want to choose communities toward whose ranks they aspire—communities with good reputations. Officials choosing comparison cities should be wary of the tendency to only choose others “as much like us as possible.” If officials were certain that all the good ideas were confined to cities “just like theirs,” then this might be a good selection strategy; however, many benchmarking experts consider heterogeneity across the members of the comparison group to be a factor likely to expand the number of important findings and increase interorganizational learning. Perhaps this suggests that a balanced perspective in the selection of comparison cities would be well advised—a strategy that includes some cities that share certain social, economic, and regional factors that could influence the difficulty of incoming workload and includes other cities simply because they are strong performers achieving good results.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 25/06/2026

I should have kept reading. The vast majority of payouts are criminal justice related.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 25/06/2026

City of Chicago Settlement and Judgement Costs, 2008 - 2025. While not specifically enumerated, I suspect the vast majority of these are from police misconduct. It also includes wrongful convictions, employment suits, city involved motor vehicle crashes, and infrastructure deficiencies.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 18/06/2026

It's a visual editor only thing that's modified in the Quarto extension in Positron. Again, the documentation is horrible. I spent hours trying to get this to work before figuring out the visual editor part.

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 14/06/2026

I've visited this gas station more times than I can count. I'm pretty sure it only stays open because of cyclists buying candy and people buying cigarettes (last stop before Cook County and higher taxes).

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 09/06/2026

IL local govt folks, unite! www.ilsos.gov/content/dam/pub...

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 08/06/2026

Most interesting to me, general local government has overtaken the private sector in growth (mostly from the private sector flattening out).

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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 08/06/2026

Seemingly, local government (general and ed) accounted for ~30% of the jobs growth we saw last week (~50k of the ~172k total).

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