Chicago, Illinois, is the most populous city in the state of Illinois and a major center for business and finance. It is also a center of culture, art and sports.
The booming steel industry during World War II helped to make Chicago one of the largest industrial centers in the United States. It was during this time that the city became known as the “Windy City” or “Second City.”
After World War II, the city went through a period of social changes and was increasingly racially segregated. This was not an unheard-of situation for a large urban center, but the problems were difficult to overcome.
Many African Americans were forced to live in public housing high rises and the city began to struggle with a number of racial conflicts. Some efforts to change this were peaceful, such as the civil rights crusade that brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to the city in 1966, while others were violent, such as the 1968 Chicago riots that resulted in the murder of nineteen black people.
Amid these changes, the city’s downtown area grew rapidly. This growth brought with it more traffic, more congestion and more pollution. This caused Chicagoans to become very concerned about their environment and about the health of their citizens.
As a result, the 1909 Plan of Chicago was introduced. The plan envisioned rational transportation-based expansion of the city with a focus on parks and plazas. Among other things, it called for the building of a double-deck street along the river downtown, a monumental bridge structure, and the preservation of the lakefront for park purposes.
The plan’s awe-inspiring design reflected a new sense of city planning that was invigorated by Burnham and Bennett’s famous credo, “Make no little plans.”
Although the 1909 Plan of Chicago was a great success in terms of promoting transportation-based urban growth, it did not solve all the problems of the city’s rapid growth. Nevertheless, the plan did lay the foundation for the modern Chicago of today.
During the 1890s, the population of Chicago increased by 600,000. This was a record that would be broken again and again in the 20th century.
The 1890s also saw a period of extraordinary growth in the city’s economy, with a boom in shipping and the construction of large warehouses for the expanding steel industry. In addition, many of the city’s most celebrated architects–Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan among them–began to gain recognition for their work in Chicago.
In the late 1890s, the city’s frenzied growth made it an ideal location for major world fairs. In 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition was held, and in 1897 the International Exposition of Agricultural and Mechanical Progress took place.
Some of these events would have been impossible to imagine even a few years earlier, and yet the 1890s marked a time when Chicago became one of the most important cities in the world.
The 1890s also marked a period of remarkable growth in the city’s economy, with the arrival of a number of new industries that would be key to the development of the city as an important global financial and industrial center. The expansion of the Chicago railroads in particular contributed to this growth. See This Helpful Information
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Point of Interest #2 Maharaj Indian Grill, 333 S State St, 8 E Van Buren St Unit C13, Chicago, IL 60604
Point of Interest #3 Second Leiter Building, 401 S State St, Chicago, IL 60605
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