This is the first in a new series of posts on integration-related news from around the web. If you have an item you'd like us to include just drop us a note.

• Chicago, America’s most segregated big city
  "The paths taken by Colin Lampark and Rosalyn Bates help illustrate why Chicago is the most racially segregated big city in America.
  Both are young professionals with handsome earning potential. Both moved to the city a few years ago—Lampark, 28, to Lincoln Park; Bates, 31, to Bronzeville. And both chose neighborhoods reflecting their race, a practice common in Chicago.
  Their personal stories, and many others, explain why blacks in Chicago are the most isolated racial group in the nation’s 20 largest cities, according to a Tribune analysis of 2008 population estimates. To truly integrate Chicago, 84 percent of the black or white population would need to change neighborhoods, the data show."
  from the Chicago Tribune

• Illinois advocates say successful stimulus package must include affordable housing
  "Jan. 14, 2009 - With the still-growing housing crisis at the core of the sharpest economic downturn since the Great Depression, advocates called for affordable housing to be a key component of stimulus and recovery plans.
  "Housing is infrastructure," said Jack Markowski of the Chicago-based Community Investment Corporation, alluding to massive infrastructure investments planned in the forthcoming stimulus program. "It employs people. It provides the foundation to allow people to be part of the workforce." And with a growing need for energy conservation, "it's part of the green economy."
  from ChicagoTalks.org
  
• Event: Can Public Housing Overcome Its History of Racial Discrimination and Segregation? - Wednesday, January 28th, 8:30am CDT
  MoveSmart.org board member Jennifer O'Neil contributed a chapter to the book that this Urban Institute-sponsored is based on, and friend of MoveSmart.org Sheryll Cashin is the moderator. This should not be missed. You can register online via the link above.
• Study: Bigotry Doesn't Bother People Too Much
  "With the inauguration of Barack Obama imminent and the hopes that we may have entered a time when racism has greatly diminished, or ended entirely, a new study shows that white people - even those who say they are not biased - do not get as upset when confronted with racial prejudice as they expect they will."
  from the Hartford Courant
• 13 Minutes Of Silence
  "The public’s original reaction: arson. Years later, at the public’s last chance to weigh in on “scattered-site” housing, it was silence.
  Chairs were set out Thursday as the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) held a hearing on its plan to buy five homes in order to complete a 17-year quest to spread public housing out in mixed-income neighborhoods.
  The chairs were there, but no members of the public filled them."
  from the New Haven Independent