"Plan of Chicago" by Commercial Club of Chicago, Bennett, and Burnham is an urban planning report written in the early 20th century. It presents a comprehensive civic vision to guide Chicago’s growth by restructuring transportation and rail terminals, redesigning streets and boulevards, expanding parks and the lakefront, and creating a monumental civic center to improve health, efficiency, and beauty. Drawing on lessons from the World’s Columbian Exposition and international precedents, it seeks to turn rapid expansion into coordinated development. The opening of the work explains the surge toward city life, the high costs of congestion, and the economy of a unified plan, tracing the project’s origins to the 1893 Exposition and early lakefront proposals. It recounts how the Commercial Club commissioned the effort, formed committees, hosted frequent reviews, and set goals for commerce, transportation, recreation, and dignified public groupings within an expandable framework. The next section surveys global precedents from Babylon, Egypt, Athens, and Rome through Paris under Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Haussmann, modern German and British reforms, and American efforts in Washington, Cleveland, Boston, St. Louis, San Francisco, and the Philippine cities of Manila and Baguio. It then turns to Chicago’s role as the Middle West’s metropolis, its historical foundations and explosive growth, and the pressing need to channel that growth into convenience, health, and civic coherence. (Thi…
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