There is a lot to be cognizant of in the dynamics of our past settlements and how we have become an array of our present. In every place where place is found and every gap we fortify, we grapple with each array and force a future we hope to portray.

Site of Chicago, in 1820. The second Fort Dearborn, built in 1816, is situated to the left of the main river channel. From a lithograph by J. Gemmel, published by D. Fabronius, probably in 1857

I am learning more about the genetics of our organizing principles as they present themselves in our built environment - a diorama of the universe within. My instincts are to search out first principles, first causes and identities associated with the founding of this Mega-Metropolis on the lake. Exponential growth patterns encourage me to look back as if a culture of fewer could carry all we know and see today.

In this place with the Lake so large, we operate with the notion that it is capable of absorbing every folly. Today, the Chicago metropolitan area is six-and-a-half-million and growing. Upon investigation we can see paths of patterns in how the city became what we see today. Carolyn Raffensperger of the, Science & Environmental Health Network was very kind to give me this early view of Chicago from the water. Although it seems sparse it is rich in three basic elements: the water we drink (with 20% of the worlds fresh water), the land we sow (with the richest soils in the world), and the air we breath (the vast sky’s of fresh clean air). Yet, we often forget the life of which we are apart, and which knits and communicates between the three basic elements of our region, and creates the possibility of every identity. 

So here we are again on this magnificent lake, faced with a new array of challenges that prompt us to envision whole new ways of being. We are at this epic moment, faced with the greatest urban renewal project humankind has ever known. Most of our time on the land has been spent sheltering ourselves from the elements, now we are beginning to conceive how we may live in harmony with them. We are looking again, and taking inventories of the built and natural environments, and mining the past for answers. We are questioning the forces that played upon our common intent, and the subsequent patterns of practice produced. We are collecting again, this time data, frameworks, systems, best practices, stories and designs. 

This mere adolescent act of building capacity is changing who we are and how we interact with our surroundings. It is having ripple effects throughout our society and the world, including how we do business, and how we move through the world. It is changing every material we make, use and, and reuse, and animating every inert material with multiple tasks never before thought of. We are mining our dumps, junkyards and garbage cans. We are designing from cradle to cradle, and eliminating the throw away society. 

We are changing the equation.

To a certain degree Chicago studios and labs have been at the forefront of visioning new equations. The Urban Lab’s H2O project is one such vision for revitalizing our watershed by borrowing and extending motifs from the 1909 Burnham Plan of Chicago. Regardless, this new era continues to face enormous challenges from legacy industries and planning frameworks, particularly transportation frameworks developed for fossil fuel dependent industries. 

This epic moment in urban renewal will require new transportation design concepts which maximize alternative energy resources. Transportation planning during the past century was rarely integrated into place making land use designs. Highway H2O is not only an unfortunate metaphor but an all-too accurate one for industry looking back to the “hey days” of the 1950’s transportation expansion models. Another transportation related failure of the twentieth century has been our deep dependence on fossil fuels. Although our Investments portfolios are stocked with Oil, future use projections of oil indicate we have very little choice but to get beyond this addiction. As the energy equation for fossil fuels becomes less favorable this will strengthen the viability of alternate sources.

Energy Challenges Still Tying Us to Past Patterns of Behavior
As we begin to retool and make the necessary transition out of our deep dependence on fossil fuels we need to be pragmatic and mindful of how far some will go to hold to this legacy industry. We are at a very perilous moment. Today Chicago is retooling its refining capacity to support the heavy sour crude coming out of the Canadian Tar Sands. It is estimated that the Tar Sands will supply enough fuel to support the present rate of growth in our region for the next decade.  Yet, it comes at a tremendous cost to Chicago by:

• Degrading our environment: piping in, refining, and burning this high sulfur product throughout the Chicago land region (BP on the shores of Lake Michigan) will increase aggregate levels of pollution and further stress our sustaining airshed.
• Increasing energy costs: 1-barrel investment to produce 5-barrels of product (for heavy sour crude from the Tar Sands). That is down from 1-barrel investment to produce 100-barrels of product (for sweet crude).

It also comes at a tremendous cost to the natural resources in Alberta and the surrounding areas. 

• Deforestation: The tar sands ranks second to the Amazon Rainforest Basin in its rate of deforestation on the planet, and wiping out the ancient Boreal Forest in Canada.
• Increased CO2 Emissions: The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production.
• Massive Tailing Ponds: The tailing ponds are growing, > 50 kilometres

As we are beginning to understand the importance of environmental sustainability from the viewpoint of our Great Lakes, we are simultaneously (due to our appetite for fossil fuels) creating a watershed disaster on the scale of Lake Michigan.

The Environmental Defense has called it the most destructive project on Earth.

Envisioning a Future
The best way to clarify future markets is with better solutions and cooler products. What apple did to the music industry can be replicated in the transportation industry. The “Living Planet City” out of Canada, the same Canada of the Alberta Tar Sands, have developed a visual aid for envisioning ways of organizing our communities around renewable energy. 

via [ Living Planet City ]  

Imagine a world where we no longer need to burn dirty fuels like coal or oil from the tar sands that cause global warming.

It would look a lot like the Living Planet City, where people’s homes, workplaces and vehiclesare powered by harnessing renewable energy from the sun, wind, water and earth. And it is possible now!

The Living Planet City is a virtual city, but real communities in Canada and around the world are already using similar systems. In these communities, citizens are gaining a whole new understanding of energy, and actively engaging in the fight against climate change. They are lowering greenhouse gas emissions and securing a local, renewable energy supply, all while reducing their energy bills and creating good, green jobs.

Thomas Case Studies, Chicago, View of Lake Michigan