Nothing But Net: 171 Great Chicago Web Sites

Lost in front of the Web address bar? Search engines letting you down? We scoured the Web to find the sites that make the lives of Chicagoans better in the real world, winnowing the chaff from the wheat to give you the best real-estate search, the most active foodie forum, the top local news sources, and much, much more.

By Stuart Luman, Graham Meyer, and Dawn Reiss

Just defining the criteria for this list flummoxed us. Fantasy baseball? Too frivolous. A cocktail database? Not Chicago-specific. Svengoolie's blog? Uh, no. We settled on listing those essentially local sites we thought would be most useful or interesting to people who live right here. (And we left off the most obvious, such as ChicagoTribune.com and SunTimes.com.) Of course, there's no way we could ever have checked out everything. What'd we miss? Tell us in the comments below.

THE LIST >>

171 Chicago Web sites we love—and why—divided into categories including news, sports, arts & culture, shopping, real estate, music, parenting, and more.

MY FAVORITE SITES >>

Four local experts on music, politics, food, and design share the Web sites that keep them up to date in their fields.

TIME LESS WELL SPENT >>

Besides the useful sites listed in this article, local Web culture offers several others that are just good for leisurely browsing.

GET WIRED >>

Six spots that we think vie for the title of perfect neighborhood Wi-Fi café

JUST THE LINKS, PLEASE >>

A downloadable bookmark for quick access to all of these sites! PLUS: a list of just the links

NET PIX >>

Almost two million photos on Flickr have a Chicago connection. From an earthbound angel to an eerie nocturnal landscape, here are 13 local pix that click.

 
Illustration: Quickhoney

 
This article appears in the February 2008 issue of Chicago Magazine.

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Reader Comments:
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Comments, page 1 of 5 1 2 3 4 Next »
Jan 16, 2008 06:25 pm
 Posted by  Anonymous

Try www.ctunet.com and get the true facts on the daily education situation in Chicago!

Jan 17, 2008 02:49 pm
 Posted by  Anonymous

Story about 171 Best Web Sites in Chicago should include www.choosechicago.com, but it doesn’t. Under travel, you have www.enjoyillinois.com, which is really a state site even though your criteria mentions Chicago sites. I am not complaining about enjoyillinois being on there. I just thought www.choosechicago.com should definitely have been on there.

Jan 17, 2008 02:50 pm
 Posted by  Anonymous

www.choosechicago.com for great information on Chicago.

Jan 17, 2008 03:07 pm
 Posted by  Anonymous

dood, just went on choosechicago.com. that web site is not even for people who live here. it's for visitors. as for ctunet.com, i prefer district299.com, which is already on this list.

Jan 18, 2008 08:58 am
 Posted by  Anonymous

Here is another Chicago-baseed web site that I found
out about on Gapers Block:

www.libraryofinspiration.com

(Contains addictive essays by Chicago writers on
literature, movies, and music).

Thanks for all the tips to the others. Kept me up
late last night!

Jan 18, 2008 09:01 am
 Posted by  Anonymous

how funny that your story on great web sites...still isn't online

Jan 18, 2008 09:21 am
 Posted by  Anonymous

The library of inspiration site has some good reading on it. Thanks for the info.

Jan 20, 2008 09:17 am
 Posted by  Anonymous

www.ctunet.com is a factual, news-oriented site. Granted, news just isn't as exciting as the National Enquirer or People. Then again, 299 isn't Vanity Fair either...especially when most of the posts are from George Schmidt who certainly isn't Dominic Dunne!!!

Jan 20, 2008 02:24 pm
 Posted by  Anonymous

Check Out TheDailyBride.com it's a new Chicago Wedding Planning site that uses video.

Jan 21, 2008 12:00 am
 Posted by  Anonymous

secondcitycop.blogspot.com was ranked. What a great website to get some insight on CPD officers and what they have to go through.

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