Alden Loury
Data Projects Editor
Alden joined WBEZ in July 2018 and served as senior editor of the race, class and communities desk, which provides enterprise reporting on those topics as well as daily reporting on housing, immigration and employment. He switched over to the data team in October 2022.
Previously, Alden served as the director of research and evaluation for the Metropolitan Planning Council for two years where he examined and wrote about population loss, demographic shifts, job trends and racial segregation.
Prior to joining MPC, Alden served as an investigator and later as a policy analyst for the Better Government Association. In more than four years at the BGA, Alden documented abuses with legislative scholarships, campaign finance expenditures and ward remapping and later analyzed data and lobbied for reforms to increase government transparency, efficiency and accountability.
Prior to joining the BGA, Alden spent 12 years at The Chicago Reporter, initially as a reporter, then senior editor and finally as publisher. He authored, edited or provided research for more than 50 investigative projects examining the impact of race and class in drug sentencing, jury verdicts, jury selection, lottery ticket sales, fatal police shootings and subprime mortgage lending, among other topics.
Alden has discussed his work on ABC7, CBS2, CNN, FOX32, NBC5, WBEZ, WGN-TV, and WTTW Chicago Tonight. His research has appeared in The Chicago Defender, The Chicago Reporter, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Alden is a Chicago native who grew up in the LeClaire Courts public housing development and later the Auburn Gresham community on the city’s South Side.
Stories by Alden Loury
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CPS help was short-lived for Chicago schools that absorbed students from schools closed in 2013
The Sun-Times and WBEZ found that school officials failed to protect these welcoming schools and the $155 million invested in them over time.
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Chicago promised students would do better after closing 50 schools. That didn’t happen.
Chicago closed 50 schools in 2013, saying this would help students. But our analysis shows little changed academically for the affected kids.
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Ten years after Chicago closed 50 public schools, more than half remain shuttered and unused
The mayor promised the 46 buildings left would get a second life. The Sun-Times and WBEZ visited every building and community to see what happened.
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Chicago closed 50 public schools 10 years ago. Did the city keep its promises?
The city said the students would be better off, their new schools transformed and the closed buildings would be reborn as community assets.
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Do youths have enough places to get together? What the data shows
Few venues catering to teens are found outside of downtown and surrounding areas. And neighborhood parks are getting even more dangerous.
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By the numbers: How did Brandon Johnson win?
Sizeable runoff wins in majority-Black precincts allowed Johnson to erase a 60,000-plus vote deficit from the February general election.
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Who are the voters who will ultimately determine Chicago’s next mayor?
In the April 4 runoff between Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, voter turnout may be what decides the outcome.
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Here are five takeaways from Chicago’s municipal election
Sluggish turnout, racial preferences and switching allegiances all influenced Chicago’s election, shows a WBEZ analysis.
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Does Chicago need a Black consensus candidate?
The discourse that once ran through Black Chicago for decades about unity around a Black consensus candidate has waned.
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Five takeaways about voter turnout in Chicago ahead of this month’s municipal election
This past November, Chicago witnessed its lowest voter turnout for a midterm election in the past 80 years.
