CHICAGO — With snow expected to snarl the roads and cover cars here over the next few days, the cold-weather battle over Windy City street parking will kick into high gear.
Residents will pick up their shovels, clear their curbs of powder and ice -- and then line their stretch of the street with lawn chairs.
Or sawhorses. Dinette sets. Bar stools. Flowerpots.
Even empty cardboard boxes and rusty metal buckets will litter the roads, all in a bid to ward off drivers who might steal the cleared space.
It's an unwritten law, particularly in the densely populated neighborhoods that have gentrified as part of this city's ongoing urban revival: If you shovel it, you own it. And woe be to anyone who moves such items while the spot's "owner" is away.
"You could put a television set out there and no one would touch it," said Wendy Pastrick, 36, a database administrator whose family keeps a bright-orange construction cone next to the snow shovel on the front steps.
Across the street, two houses had folding chairs leaning against snow shovels. Down the block, two more homes had white plastic chairs nestled amid the shrubs and bags of de-icing salt.
Those who do dare move such items and claim a stretch of curb they didn't clear could see their normally friendly neighbors turn into vigilantes who dole out justice by breaking windows, scratching paint and slashing tires.
The tradition of guarding parking spaces is not without its critics.
"It's pathetic," said Eric Zorn, a metro columnist for the Chicago Tribune who has railed against the practice -- to friends, neighbors and in print -- for years.
"I feel some sympathy when we really get walloped and it takes so long to shovel the street. But what we've had this winter so far, shoveling a few inches of snow, is no reason to stake a claim on a public street."
As snowplows crawl through the city's main arteries and crisscross its neighborhoods, they leave behind thousands of miles of cleared streets -- and cars trapped by piles of dirty snow.
Owners digging out their vehicles often create a patch of cleared blacktop with mounds of icy excess tossed into the gaps at the front and back of their cars. Those leftover piles of snow eat up valuable curb space and reduce the amount of overall parking.
Hauling out garage-sale junk from the basement soon follows. So do the neighborhood skirmishes.
