Selected State Reports

State Documents

■ Adult Correctional Center Capacity Survey, Illinois Department of Corrections (January 1986), 100pp.

The Illinois prison system currently houses over 18,500 adult felons, an increase of more than 1,700 inmates since a year ago. This report examines the concept of capacity from a variety of perspectives and makes a number of specific recommendations for action by the General Assembly. A lengthy appendix contains data on each of the state's 17 correctional centers and one psychiatric center.

■ Trade-Off Between Local and Federal Funding for Wastewater Treatment Facilities, Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources (November 1985), 104pp.

This study examines the question of whether municipalities always benefit by employing a user charge and financing a wastewater treatment facility with a federal grant. Of particular interest is the negative impact on the community from the additional taxes that must be paid when property taxes are not used to finance the wastewater treatment plant.

■ Housing Facilities for the Elderly in Illinois, 1985, Illinois Housing Development Authority and Illinois Department on Aging (1985), 299pp.

Both public and private facilities are included in this directory; it is in alphabetical order by county. For each facility the following information is included: contact person, administering agency, description, services and admission policies.

■ Health Cost Update, Illinois Health Care Cost Containment Council. 188 W. Randolph, Suite 1518, Chicago 60601; free of charge.

This brand-new newsletter will be published four times a year and will provide information from the council's data base, one of the most comprehensive in the nation. It will also report on council activities as well as those of other groups concerned with health care costs.

■ Thunderstorms and Lightning . . . Illinois' Most Awesome Weather and Restoring Our Illinois Lakes, State Water Survey Division, 2204 Griffith Drive, Champaign 61820 (December 1985), 12-page pamphlets.

Like the others in this series, these pamphlets are written in layman's terms and have a number of photographs as well as sketches, graphs and maps. The one on thunderstorms describes both their importance and their negative aspects; it explains their causes and what to do in case you are caught in one. The pamphlet on lakes describes the life cycle of a lake, the problems associated with the final stage of a lake's life (before it becomes a pond or swamp) and how a lake can be restored.

■ Current Alternative Energy Research and Development in Illinois, Illinois Department of Natural Resources (December 1985), 158pp.

Over 50 projects concerned with the development of nonfossil, nonnuclear energy sources are listed in this directory; all were either completed after May 1985 or in progress in November 1985. For each project the title, performing organization, principal investigator, sponsoring organization and project location is provided; in addition, a summary of the project is included. Several indexes are also provided: by project title, by contributor, by research organization and by project location.

Other Reports

■ Reclaiming the Inner City: Chicago's Near North Revitalization Confronts Cabrini-Green, by Ed Marciniak (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, 1986), 168pp.; $5.95.

A major issue facing many of our large urban centers is what to do about the public housing projects and the people that live there. Ed Marciniak, a social activist and professor of urban studies at Loyola University in Chicago, takes a look at one of the country's best-known projects, Cabrini-Green — its history, its 13,500 residents and its prospect and special problems due to its location at the edge of one of the city's wealthiest areas. The author predicts that soon "the Cabrini-Green high rises will be at the center of a classic confrontation between political constituencies with clashing interests; between onrushing affluence and defensive poverty; between spunky owners of small properties and spineless bureaucracies; and between urban revival and inner city stagnation." This is the third volume in a trilogy that examines the city of Chicago; the first was entitled Reviving an Inner City Community, the second was Reversing Urban Decline.

■ The Great Lakes Economy: A Resource and Industry Profile of the Great Lakes States, prepared by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in conjunction with The Great Lakes Commission (October 1985), 264pp.; available at $27.50 plus $2.50 for shipping and handling from Harbor House Publishers, 221 Water St., Boyne City, Mich. 49712.

This first-ever comprehensive economic portrait of the Great Lakes Region consists almost entirely of graphs, pie charts, tables and maps. It covers the eight states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and is divided into three sections: peoples and resources, Great Lakes economy and key industries, and Great Lakes economic base.

■ Argonne National Laboratory 1985-86, Bldg. 201, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne 60439 (1986), 36pp.

Argonne National Laboratory, the first U.S. national laboratory, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Primary focus at the lab is on engineering research (particularly for nuclear power and other advanced energy technologies), basic science (particularly chemistry, physics and materials science) and biomedical and environmental science and technology. It is operated by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy. Argonne works with industry and academia and has programs for college as well as high school students. Among its many activities during the past year, the lab has demonstrated an inherently safe nuclear reactor, worked on a fuel cell that could produce five times the power of an internal combustion engine, surveyed Chicago-area homes for radon, which is a naturally occurring radioactive gas, and demonstrated a new supercomputer.

Items listed under State Documents have been received by the Documents Unit, Illinois State Library, Springfield, and are usually available from public libraries in the state through interliberary loan.

Anna J. Merritt

May 1986/Illinois Issues/31