SubX.News® Street Report | Feb 23, 2026
Cold air came off the lake and traffic slid into its familiar rhythm on a late‑February Monday in Chicago.
But something felt off.
Corridors that should’ve been humming were quieter, the kind of quiet you only notice when you’ve seen these streets packed and know what the city looks like when it’s really moving.
On Ida B. Wells, the cardboard sidewalk homes looked bigger with the cold, boxes pushed together tighter against the wind.
Downtown blocks that usually carry an edge—office workers, shoppers, tourists, sirens—felt thinned out, like someone had turned the volume down a notch.
As the drive moved west, the first visual that really stuck was Fulton Market. At Green and Randolph, the glass and steel optimism of the district ran into a simple reality: plywood.
There you go, Green and Randolph plywood special. Fulton Market District didn’t make it… we’re gonna be back in spring, but plywood means no money.
Plywood is not a good look.
Boarded storefronts in one of the city’s most heavily marketed redevelopment zones felt like someone hit pause. In a place built on constant momentum, plywood doesn’t just cover windows—it signals that cash flow stopped somewhere along the line.
The drive kept rolling, the city shifting block by block, until the scene jumped a few miles west to Lake and Damen, under the Green Line tracks. There, the future looked like it had hit a wall.
Ain’t that robot crashed there?
Tremaine … looks like he’s crashed into the wall or something … maybe he’s taking a break.
The delivery robot sat motionless against the concrete, funny at first but hard to shake, automation parked in a neighborhood still dealing with the basics.
After a minute it started moving again, rolling along its track like nothing happened.
Tremaine isn’t a sci‑fi prop.
He’s part of the city’s current experiment: fleets of delivery bots tied into apps and food platforms, rolling through a mix of trendy corridors and working‑class blocks.
City Hall says they’re about efficiency and low‑emission deliveries.
On the ground, they look a lot like the K‑economy in motion, machines quietly taking over jobs in neighborhoods where people are already scrambling for work.
A few stops later, the temperature showed up in another way.
Over at John Levin Park in South Austin, a glow cut through the night. Flames pushed out of a makeshift fire while a small group gathered close for warmth. Go try that out, see how it works out for you. If you or I set up a fire pit in a public park, we’d get a ticket, probably locked up. We wouldn’t have fire, that’s for sure.
It wasn’t theory or policy in that moment, just what was there on the ground, people huddled around open flames in a public park as the air cooled and smoke drifted across the block.
Nearby at Central and Lake, the next scene spoke for itself.
Campaign signs layered across a shuttered storefront, slogans taped to a business that wasn’t bringing anyone inside anymore.
How come you put your signs for political office on a closed business? That’s a closed business, and they put their political signs up to vote for them.
It felt less like campaigning and more like symbolism, promises sitting on top of emptiness.
A few blocks away we were pulled over by the cops for our headlights being off.
Flipped the lights on and the problem was fixed, but the contrast was already there. Minutes earlier at Levin Park there was an open fire burning and drug addicts gathered around it, no lights, no stops.
The officer said they’d go check it.
A quick loop back to the park showed everything exactly the same. Fire still burning, the same people still there, no police in sight.
The squad had gone the other direction.
The difference between what gets attention and what doesn’t didn’t need explaining.
It was already on the screen.
All afternoon the scanner filled in the wider picture.
An armed robbery near the University of Chicago, suspects fleeing in a dark blue Accord.
Dating‑app meetups in Woodlawn turning into gunpoint robberies.
A stolen U‑Haul moving across the city while units tracked its route, a Timothy McVeigh‑level risk if the wrong person is behind the wheel.
Domestic calls, well‑being checks, constant motion on the air even when the streets looked quiet. Underneath it all, the economic backdrop threaded through the whole ride.
Vacant storefronts downtown.
Little Village business owners on 26th Street reporting sales drops as steep as 80 percent since last year.
Fear and uncertainty keeping some customers home as enforcement ripples through the neighborhood.
Neighborhood shops on the West Side and in places like Pilsen feeling the slowdown.
On the other end, radio chatter about tariffs, AI, and layoffs as the city tries to adapt while the ground keeps shifting.
Three years into this Brandon Johnson stretch, the numbers are massive.
The 2026 city budget alone sits around $16.6 billion, with gaps still projected ahead while schools push past ten billion a year and deficits creep toward the billion‑dollar mark as pandemic aid fades.
Stack it up and you’re talking well over $80 billion flowing through the Chicago Teachers Union machine across those years, all while the view from the street still has people asking the same question.
Where did it go?
Out on the blocks, the answer doesn’t show up in spreadsheets.
It shows up in plywood on storefronts, quieter corridors, a fire burning in a park, and a robot paused under the tracks on Lake Street, a snapshot of a city pushing forward while everything still feels stuck.
Even Da Bears look like they might be skipping town now too, with about $60 to $70 million a year gone in local revenue and more than a billion in economic activity heading out of town with it.
Three years, all those billions, Chicago still grinding.
No wonder Tremaine was taking a leak.
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Image – Tremaine paused under the CTA Green Line, wheels wet on the pavement, looking like even the robots needed a minute @ 5:40 PM – Feb 23, 2026 – Lake & Damen SubX.News®
