What Chicago Can Teach Us

This weekend I took a trip to Chicago. Through viewing the city, it’s architecture it’s primacy in the midwestern region and culture. I was left with a few takeaways.

The existence of the beautiful Chicago skyline emanates from our ability to overcome challenges. Chicago is home to many skyscrapers, why? Developers did not have the space to build horizontally, so they strategized on how to build vertically. They also found various ways to overcome rules and regulations. Throughout history architects had to implement new designs to overcome regulation in addition to environmental factors such as wind and the cold climate.

In the early 1900’s engineers had to reverse the flow if the Chicago River due to sewage and pollution causing illness within the population. Mayor Daley feared Chicago’s fate, as it pertained to his city joining their fellow rustbelt peers in industrial decline. They came up with a plan to help the city avoid its peril. Today old warehouses are now home to major tech companies like Apple and Microsoft, We Work offices and luxury high rises. Much of downtown Chicago looks like Manhattan. If you remove the above ground trains.

Takeaways: We all face challenges and obstacles, but we must rely on creative solutions. The ability to overcome is all that separates those who succeed from those who fail. Secondly, we must all have a vision for our lives and be open to change. Chicago was once a major industrial city with an economy based in manufacturing. Today it embraces tech, finance and law. Who we are today is not necessarily who we will be tomorrow. Similarly, to Chicago we need to recreate ourselves with a new vision and framework from time to time.