In the spirit of my recent, in a sense new-found ability, to not only articulate what is on my mind, but assert my right to share it, here are some thoughts on the city I have been calling home for some time now:
Preface: Chicago is a beautiful city in the sense that the people of Chicago are of value. The more the city's architecture and infrastructure is improved to foster their physical and intellectual health of the population, I believe the more the true character of the region and, indeed, the people, will be shown to be an exemplary one. This, despite, the slightly swampy nature of the area, which calls for a special, and, not to mention, more costly architectural-foundational approach to building in the future, as specified by code.
Congestion in the city is a lingering issue, the resolution of which will require major cultural reformations, and infrastructural innovations. The relatively featureless landscape, relatively, ably provided for "getaways" from whatever unsavory scenarios presented themselves, creating what once was a quick spreading border of settlement, and vast suburbs, yet, however, resulting in this condition of congestion that is 1. automotive, and 2. powered by internally combusted engines. http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/ "Professor Laurence Rohter, who teaches civil architecture and environmental engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and also a Transport Chicago steering committee member, said the city needs to build connected bicycle paths that are segregated from automobile traffic and are all-weather. “Due to the weather in Chicago,” Rohter said, “it must be all-weather. It would look something like the Minneapolis skyway system.'"
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/searchresults.aspx?searchtext=traffic
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/searchresults.aspx?searchtext=traffic
A particularly injurious addition to this is the Pilsen Power Plant ie. the Crawford and Fisk Coal Fired Power Plants located within the city limits, in fact, not at all far from the Loop, one of the most densely built areas on the continent, et. al., which "is used to maintain reliabity of the electrical grid during peak times" (http://pilsenperro.org/coalpower.htm). Cultivation of house plants in the city, (including, if needed, heavy investments in self-watering-technology ceramics), getting all interested parties involved in protesting the coal burning plants, esp. those located within the city limts, and, limiting further emissions of fossil fuels in the city, or its vicinities (ie. limiting unnecessary driving, heating, use of electricity; implementing/investing in the use of solar technology, geothermal technology in buildings, and also other green building practices, and batteries, while also developing these technologies, including encouraging their adoption, through political interventions, such as implementation of zoning designed for long-term implementation of solar, legal laws, and government tax refunds...)
And from my private-eye's perspective, a most injurious result of development is one continuing to wreak havoc on the people of Chicago, and the locale as a city, which could be categorized as "industrial waste". I do believe the effect of (hexavalent) chromium 6 contaminated public water, not in the top five cities in the nation (ranking below San Jose), can be correlated to the decline of the areas growth since 1950 hexavalent chromium wiki. Hexavalent chromium is used in the manufacture of stainless steel; "1929 before the Great Depression hit, over 25,000 tons of stainless steel was manufactured and sold in the US.[9]" stainless steel wiki. U.S. Steel's production peaked at more than 35 million tons in 1953. U.S. Steel wiki "But in 1880 the census recorded 503,000 inhabitants—whereupon it doubled to over a million in 1890 (passing Philadelphia to become the “second city”) and doubled again, to 2.2 million, by 1910. Numbers kept climbing, though never again that fast. Chicago's population peaked at 3,621,092 in the census of 1950 and has slipped since then; in 2000 it was 2,896,016. " Demography: Chicago Encyclopedia
"U.S. Steel" the conglomerate funded by J.P. Morgan, located in Gary, Indiana, which ramped up production in the early 20th century, and produced its most in 1953, precisely around the time Chicago's momentous growth was being retarded, keeping precedence, money, and power, concentrated in the East Coast, seemingly, come to think about it, as the thriving Chicago metropolis, surrounded by some the world's most fertile farmland, and something of the world's largest fresh water supply at its doorstep... and centrally located in the Continental U.S. a nexus of power in itself...
