Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley

Chicagoans have elected Rahm Emanuel as their next mayor. Mr. Emanuel served as chief of staff to President Obama. He has also served as a Democratic congressman from the Chicago area.

On May sixteenth Rahm Emanuel will become the top political leader of a city famous for its politics, long controlled by Democrats. In fact, Chicago has not had a Republican mayor in eighty years, since William "Big Bill" Thompson left office in nineteen thirty-one.

BOB DOUGHTY: Chicago is a big place to govern -- the business center of the Midwest. The city lies along the shore of one of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan. Some of the wealthiest people in Chicago live in the high-rise buildings along the lakeshore.

Chicago is divided into fifty legislative areas called wards. Each ward elects a representative known as an alderman to the Chicago City Council.

Last year's national census found that two million seven hundred thousand people were living in the city. That was a decrease of about seven percent since the last census in two thousand.

The population is racially and ethnically mixed. Whites are the largest group at forty-five percent. The city also has large numbers of blacks and Hispanics. And it has large numbers of people who work in Chicago but live in the growing suburbs outside the city.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The most influential political organization in Chicago is the Cook County Democratic Party. The organization is also known as the "Chicago Machine" or simply "The Machine." Many of its leaders have been of Irish, Polish and other immigrant ancestry.