Chicago Magazine hires Smith to cover real estate

Ryan Smith

Chicago Magazine has hired Ryan Smith to cover real estate in the city.

He will be writing for Chicago Magazine’s website, and he’ll be responsible for a weekly Friday newsletter about real estate.

“I’ll be covering Chicago-area real estate but part of the idea is to go beyond the typical beat of listings round-ups and market trends,” said Smith in an email. “I’ll also be writing about the history, design, architecture of Chicago’s built environment and the politics of housing and gentrification issues.”

He replaces AJ LaTrace who left in November.

Smith is a freelance Chicago-based journalist with recent bylines in Chicago Sun-Times, The Guardian, Curbed, The Verge, Jacobin Magazine, and Isthmus. His essay about “The 78” appeared in Belt Publishing’s 2019 anthology Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook.

Previously, he was the social media editor at the Chicago Reader and a frequent contributor to The Onion A.V. Club and Chicago Tribune’s RedEye and a crime reporter at the Jefferson City News Tribune.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.