(Chicago Tribune) — Mayor Rahm Emanuel is down to two candidates for the top post at the Chicago Housing Authority, a job whose chief concern will be dealing with a stubbornly anemic real estate market that has hampered efforts to create vibrant mixed-income developments where crime-ridden high-rises once stood. Those developments are the linchpin in the CHA’s $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation, launched in 1999 and now expected to be completed by 2015, five years past the original target date. Getting the ambitious effort back on track has been tough amid the sluggish economy, even while the Plan for Transformation continues to impact huge swaths of the city — including the tens of thousands of public housing residents who were moved out of the demolished towers and offered a path out of chronic poverty.
