Wal-Mart has set on an endeavor to break into the Chicago retail market yet again. A location has been proposed in Chatham, a town on the South Side of Chicago, for a second Wal-Mart within Chicago city limits. There are people that have voiced their opinions against Wal-Mart. Some believe that there will be no tax revenue for the city, no net job increase, Wal-Mart will drive down wages, and, most importantly, destroy local businesses. Wal-Mart and its allies refute the accusations, saying that the neighborhood and its area residents should be the ones who decide on the fate of the mega mart. Truthfully, the South and West sides of Chicago don't have very many options for their necessities and few resources. The Chatham Wal-Mart is one of the suggested solutions. The StoryAll businesses, including ones that are already established, need to have support to get the business started on the right foot. This can be done through public relations, marketing efforts, words o... [Read Full Article]

  As Google continues to integrate the local map results into the main SERPs, the more valuable a strong local profile becomes.  Google Maps and the Local Business Center are also much easier to work with than standard search results as they are much more transparent in their rankings.  With the recent implementation of “place pages,” the local search arena just got better.  Instead of just businesses Google seems to be indexing “places,” and just like local businesses, these places are being ranked.  These “places” also look just like the local business listings, the query “millennium park Chicago, il” brings us that familiar onebox business, now place, listing.     [Read Full Article]

At the risk of stating the obvious, when you make it hard to get to a business and expensive to park near that business, you hurt that business. It is a simple equation and the results of it tend to be pretty consistent. Yet, it is an equation that the mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, is choosing to ignore. The Snow Removal Saga Like any great snow-bound saga, the tale of Chicago's snow removal involves some pretty big characters. In this case a guy named Michael Bilandic and a gal named Jane Byrne. In 1979, Bilandic was the Mayor. Over January 13 and 14 of that year, 18.8 inches of snow fell on the city. This wasn't the first big snow to hit Chicago, but the city's previous mayor, Richard J. Daley, made sure that the streets were cleared--all of them--ASAP. Bilandic, on the other hand, had a more relaxed attitude about snow removal and as a result millions of dollars were lost to businesses of all sizes when the city was paralyzed. What snow removal efforts that wer... [Read Full Article]