Just saw this! Argh, I live nearby and could easily gone there, heck I was at Merlo branch yesterday.
I was about to reply almost identically, except I live near Midway. Still, I would have been up for making a trip. No idea why I only just noticed this thread.
What a strange post. (Your comments/review after the talk.)
I’m not @RayMan but if he was going in expecting it to be relevant on the professional level, and it was entirely geared to “entry level” overview, it may well have felt disappointing, no matter the speaker’s skill. I base this on his latter review, which was fully respectful - again, he was clearly not the expected audience for this talk.
One thing I can say with certainty: the talk I attended on Saturday was much, much, much better than my poor attempts to convey my opinions about the talk.
I apologize for having disappointed and offended in my most recent posts. I enjoyed the talk, and I am happy that talks about topics like this exist. A data based view of the world around us is important in today’s political climate.
Again, I expect that Ed Zotti is unlikely to read this thread, but Ed has my thanks for the talk.
I wasn’t disappointed or offended, it’s just that your comments left a vacuum about the talk.
I took it as a very polite way of saying “It Sucked!”
Why not?
Ed Zotti/Cecil is obviously a pretty smart guy. So why wouldn’t he read the Dope every day, like all the rest of us smart folk?
If he has an official role here,( and maybe gets a salary from whoever owns this place right now), it seems logical that he would want to know what’s going on over here. I would think he would enjoy posting here regularly.
I would assume that he’s like a super-moderator, with all the perks, but none of the hassles of day-to-day operations.
(Maybe this should be a new thread.)
( Or maybe somebody could start a thread called “Spot Ed!–Let’s guess which username is really Ed Zotti”.
Or maybe not…'cause then he would get banned for being a sock 
We don’t wanna risk that, do we? )
I am really sorry I didn’t see this till now. I would have gone if I knew about it in time (my fault for missing this).
He reads.
I believe in my heart of hearts he reads.
He reports to Cecil.
Obviously Cecil appreciates me. He spoke directly to me once.
Ask about my health.
Yakedy yak yak. Boy, that man can talk.
Regular motor mouth.
Thank you very much for posting this because I also attended the presentation.
I enjoyed it very much. I’m a curious Chicagoan without a particular interest in demographics or census data and found the time zipped by. I thought it was a good, shall we say, academic level for a general interest lecture at the library. I was not prepared for the large crowd, it was packed!
It’s always fascinating to imagine the places we think we know now but a few generations back: booms, busts, factories, white flights, shifting borders, wealth patterns, housing prices. Similarly, we can look forward to quantum computing campuses and perhaps a continued increase in college educated residents ‘with a choice,’ additional patterns away from segregation. These were all discussed in an interesting (and sometimes funny) way. I’m in one of those duller area of the map that stayed blue and green most of the last 50 years and it’s neat to learn more about areas I don’t get to as much.
I saved the best for last: Gripes.
It was light on ‘Since COVID.’ It’s understandable and Ed confirms what we all might have guessed: 1. Census2020 was all sorts of messed up and other techniques need to be used. But no matter how they’re counted… 2. Population numbers are down, some more than others. Black middle class down, Latinos up.
Yea, the map captions & legends were too small. I’m sure they looked good during dev but they didn’t carry through to the library projector.
But I had a really fun morning out in Edgewater.
Thank you for that very informative post. 
I’m glad you enjoyed the talk. I take it you were expecting something a bit more technical? I’m not an academic, but even if I were that would be a risky thing to try with an unfamiliar audience on a Saturday morning at the public library. As it turned out, it was a lively (and large) crowd, excellent questions, had a great time.
As for being light on Covid, I can’t argue, but thought my observations on who stayed in the city during the pandemic and who left might be interesting. At any rate, it made for a nice segue to my argument about neighborhoods of choice, which seemed to resonate with people and is seldom discussed.
Nice to see you Ed Zotti.
You’re my huckleberry. 