Our Top 17
Welcome! If you only have an afternoon, this is the place to begin. We picked 17 of our favorite pieces on the places and people that keep Chicago moving: airports, water, power, security and the crews who build it all. Every one is written in plain words and links to its sources.
Grab one that sounds fun. There is no test at the end.
Think of this page as a friendly trail map. Pick a journey, tap a card, and take your time. Short Briefs take about five minutes. Deep Dives and Sagas are for when you want the full story.
Fly with us
Airports, concessions and the runway to everywhere
O’Hare 21: How Chicago Is Rebuilding the Middle of O’Hare
The big picture of the terminals, gates and money, told so you can follow it on one coffee.
Read it →
Airport Concessions: Who Gets to Sell the Coffee?
How restaurants and shops win space at O’Hare and Midway, and where a small firm can step in.
Read it →
Who Owns the Response?
Drones and GPS jamming near airports: what is public, and who decides when something goes wrong.
Read it →
Peak Prices, Runways and Rockford
Record parcel prices meet a busy cargo airport, and what that means for local firms.
Read it →Follow the water
Pipes, floods and the warnings you can read
Chicago’s Water Mains and Lead Pipes
The underground rebuild beneath every street, in plain words, with every number sourced.
Read it →
Clam, the Catch Basin Truck
Our original gold-standard brief: a friendly truck, a flooded street and the real numbers behind it.
Read it →
Public Warnings, Private Gaps
Federal water-system advisories are public. What they say, and the one list every buyer should ask for.
Read it →Power, chips and people
Who gets the megawatts, and who builds the build-out
Prairie Bend: Who Gets the Megawatts First?
A fictional plant finds 890 megawatts and one dry question gets asked. A gentle way into energy.
Read it →
Dark GPUs?
Idle chips or stalled projects? Power, water and local pushback decide where AI gets built.
Read it →
Shovel-Ready
A $21 billion chip-fab deal, and the quieter lesson about ready sites.
Read it →
Robots Meet the Job Site
Robots could do 74% of physical tasks but are cost-competitive for 0.3%. Skilled crews still matter.
Read it →Trust, but check
How to tell a claim from a deliverable
Paper vs. Pavement
Fraud and integrity in public works, and how data tools help the honest majority.
Read it →
Demo vs. Deliverable
A demo can be real and still not be what you are buying. Five questions for every buyer.
Read it →
Trust, Then Verify
A Cold War case and CISA’s new guide: why a written access review beats trust in a title.
Read it →
Token Flip?
A viral AI claim, the data underneath, and the new GSA clause for public buyers.
Read it →Meet the heroes
Stories and comics for curious minds of every age
Behind the scenes: a day of building GOTB
Want more?
All of our Gold Standard Briefs live on the Home page, and new ones are added as the news and the numbers change. Have a question about a project near you? Say hello.
About
Meet Michael E. Brown
President and Managing Partner, GOTB Consulting, LLC · Chicago
Michael E. Brown has 20+ years of governmental and municipal consulting and lobbying experience. He was lead contract negotiator on the $8.5B O’Hare 21 program and the $800M O’Hare rail extension, and lead lobbyist and contract negotiator on the $400M Chicago Department of Water Management lateral redevelopment. (Dollar figures are program sizes, not GOTB fees.)
He has worked with the Illinois legislature and public officials on public-private partnership (P3) policy, and has consulted to the Cook County Commission on reducing duplicative administrative offices. He is a frequent speaker at governmental and municipal functions, focuses on good government and healthier social and economic solutions for safe, successful neighborhoods, lives in Chicago, and serves on the Board of the March of Dimes.
- M.S., Psychology (1997), University of Iowa
- B.S., Psychology (1995), University of Iowa
About
Meet Richard Butler
Partner, GOTB Consulting, LLC · Chicago
Richard (Rich) Butler is a partner at GOTB Consulting and a 38-year veteran of Chicago city government. From August 2019 to February 2020 he served as First Deputy Commissioner and Chief Administrative Officer of the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA), responsible for day-to-day administration and operations of O’Hare and Midway, including finance, contracts, operations, legal, human resources, workforce development, concessions, real estate and vehicle services. CDA manages the two airports with a federally funded budget of $8.5 billion. (Dollar figures are budget and program sizes, not GOTB fees.)
Before that, Rich was First Deputy Procurement Officer at the City’s Department of Procurement Services and Chief Administrative Officer of the Chicago Park District, where he oversaw procurement, audit, finance, warehousing and general administrative services on an estimated annual budget of $385 million and established district-wide policies and procedures. His City career began at the Department of Aviation as Director of Contracts Administration, and he also served as General Superintendent of the Department of Streets and Sanitation.
He completed the Chicago Accounting and Purchasing System Training Program and the City of Chicago Executive Management Program, was a key team member on the design and implementation plan for the City’s new eProcurement system, and is a member of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing and the Purchasing Management Association of Chicago. He has served on the board of the Chicago Municipal Employees Credit Union and on the US Communities board, representing the City of Chicago, and traveled to South Korea to represent Chicago in the Kotra Alliance to bridge contracting opportunities. A native of Englewood, he attended De La Salle High School.
- B.S., Northern Illinois University
Fictional characters from GOTB’s original stories. Real-world facts always link to public sources.