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It has been asserted so widely for so long that it is accepted as fact: When Chicago's public housing projects came down, many of their former residents moved into middle-class South Side neighborhoods and brought crime with them. Whether this is true remains the subject of intense debate more than a decade after city officials began razing high-crime public housing properties, forcing 25,000 households to relocate as part of a vast redevelopment effort dubbed the Plan for Transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After winning the mayoral election with a highly polished campaign that seemed more like a run for governor or president, Rahm Emanuel immediately turned his focus to the bare-knuckle, parochial world of Chicago ward politics. Mr. Emanuel said he did not crave the sort of ''rubber stamp'' backing that the City Council gave to Mayor Richard M. Daley's agenda. But his ability to deliver on campaign promises of radical change at City Hall depends on persuading a majority of aldermen to support his proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 600,000 households in Chicago that rely on City Hall to collect and dispose of their trash enjoy first-rate service. Regardless of what residents leave in alleys, the city carts it away to a landfill at no extra charge. This top-shelf service, however, comes at a hefty price. Chicago taxpayers pay considerably more to collect and get rid of their waste than almost any other big city, an analysis by the Chicago News Cooperative has found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though crime is declining in much of Chicago, recent high-profile episodes of violence have made neighborhood safety a hot-button issue in the municipal election campaign, and there are few areas where the debate on crime and police staffing is more impassioned than in the 46th Ward. Although crime in the ward has dropped sharply over the last two decades, a recent increase that included several highly publicized mid-day shootings has reopened a decades-old debate about security and the affordable-housing policies of Alderman Helen Shiller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edward M. Burke, alderman of the 14th Ward since 1969, is widely regarded as the most powerful member of the Chicago City Council. But as he prepares to run unopposed for an 11th full term, the communities that make up his Southwest Side ward are going through vast and sometimes painful changes. The 14th Ward has long been viewed as part of the bungalow belt, a stretch of the Southwest and Northwest sides once populated by blue-collar Poles, Lithuanians, Slovaks and other European ethnic groups. In recent years, white flight, an influx of Hispanic families and the recession have left the communities struggling with ethnic tension and disinvestment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CORRECTION APPENDED The Chicago Transit Authority announced last month that it is looking for a consulting firm to help develop a ''revenue-generating corporate sponsorship program'' -- a plan to sell private companies the naming rights to CTA train lines, train stations and bus routes. The consultant will determine which of the agency's assets might attract sponsorships and what the naming rights would be worth, according to a request for proposals issued by the CTA. Public bidding would be central to the consultant's work, the CTA said, to assure ''transparency and increased competition.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The money from privatizing Chicago's parking meters is almost tapped out, but fights over the handover's legality and fairness are still simmering. In his last budget before stepping down, Mayor Richard M. Daley proposed using $120 million from the meter deal to help erase a deficit of more than $650 million. Because the mayor also used the meter money to balance the budget the last two years, the latest proposal would leave just $76 million of the nearly $1.2 billion the city received for handing control of street parking to a private consortium until 2084. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an old adage that in politics there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. But in Chicago it is probably more precise to say that there are no permanent friends, only potential sources of cash. From one angle, the race to succeed Mayor Richard M. Daley looks like a brewing street brawl. More than a dozen candidates say they are thinking about running, and some are already questioning their opponents' management experience, political priorities and residency status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chicago is abuzz with talk about Rahm Emanuel's expected entrance into the wide-open mayor's race, with rumors swirling about when he might head back to town to formally open a campaign. Not everyone likes the idea of Mayor Emanuel. Leaders of the Service Employees International Union, which has spent millions of dollars supporting candidates in recent elections, have been telling reporters and elected officials that Mr. Emanuel, the current White House chief of staff, is several notches below the bottom of their list of mayoral contenders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The last time anyone not named Daley had a legitimate shot at being elected mayor of Chicago, the city was an emotional tinderbox. Residents and politicians were still reeling from the sudden death two years earlier of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, and the racially charged ''council wars'' that raged during his administration. It was 1989, and blacks in Chicago were locked in a bitter civil war, sharply divided between two black mayoral hopefuls. But when the fighting was over and the votes were counted, the last man standing was Richard M. Daley, who benefited from the division to win the first of his six terms as mayor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Everybody who is anybody in Chicago politics has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Mayor Richard M. Daley after his shocking retirement announcement this week. But rather than pondering their chances, potential candidates might take a good look at City Hall's balance sheet and ask themselves another question: Who would want to deal with this mess? City Hall's budget of about $6 billion is hundreds of millions of dollars short every year. Allies and critics of the outgoing mayor agree that there is no simple and politically palatable solution to the budget deficit, which is estimated to hit a record $655 million for 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many Chicago political axioms have come under assault from reformers and federal prosecutors in recent years, including ''Where's mine?'' and ''We don't want nobody nobody sent.'' But ''You can't beat somebody with nobody'' remains as true as ever with the 2011 mayoral election less than six months away. Despite polls showing that he is less popular now than at any other point in his 21-year tenure, Mayor Richard M. Daley seems poised to glide into his seventh term over what appears to be weak opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trying to sum up the legacy of Mayor Richard M. Daley's more than two decades in office in one neat snapshot is impossible. Mr. Daley is as complicated as the city he oversees. He is quick to anger, surprising, emotional; exceedingly loyal to some and ruthlessly business-like to others; parochial, yet overly sensitive when criticized for it. While he was in office, great strides were made. Mr. Daley oversaw a city that transformed its economy, making Chicago the vibrant hub of the Midwest. He remade the city's front yard with Millennium Park, and showcased the city with a victory celebration after helping a Chicagoan win the highest office in the land. And he was ready to show it off on a global stage with an ambitious bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. But there were also stunning setbacks. Moves like the middle-of-the-night takeover of Meigs Field solidified a reputation as a bully and autocrat. There was the humiliating Olympics loss -- elimination in the first round of the International Olympic Committee's voting process -- and the privatization missteps. Recent high-profile crime in otherwise-stable neighborhoods undermined the good news of relatively lower crime rates. And now he leaves a financial mess for his successor. Most assuredly, Mr. Daley's success as mayor will be debated for years. What follows is a look at his legacy in five areas -- politics, education, crime, race and business -- that will most likely frame Chicagoans' discussions about the eventful mayoralty of Richard M. Daley. JIM KIRK Politics [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]