Welcome to the
world of Chicagoland!
Chicago, with its
downtown, neighborhoods, suburbs, and surrounding cities,
is a world unto itself. Its city center gleams into the
night as one of the great skylines of the globe. Its parklands
adorn its busy corridors like emeralds in a silver crown.
Its sandy lakeshore beaches and lush forest preserves
glisten in the summer, shimmer in the autumn, dance in
the winter winds.
History and genius
meet generously in Chicago's architectural landmarks,
its superb museums, its institutions of higher learning.
People of every ethnicity, creed, and vocation bustle
in the whirl of the commercial Loop, then relax and enjoy
tranquil moments among the constellations of graceful
residential homes. The finest artists, musicians, performers
and writers are drawn in multitudes to the electricity
of the metropolis; many of the world's great chefs, designers,
professionals and entrepreneurs also make their home within
its glass canyons and vintage mansions.
What kind of place
has a magnetism that has been calling settlers and visitors
from far and wide across the broad prairie that surrounds
it for almost two hundred years? Why do pilgrims native
to balmy coastal climes resettle to brave our wild and
deep seasons? In the quietest places of Chicagoland, in
the stillest nights and snowiest days, the answer speaks
to one who listens for it. The trees rustle as though
to whisper the ancient words of Illinois' first peoples,
and the lap of the lake recalls the inexorable progress
of glaciers. Spirits of the earth and the sky move through
your breath and lull you along the nighttime flicker of
superhighways, into the glorious daylight of a clear vernal
dawn, up the elevators of a tower reaching into the elation
of the atmosphere, until all the world unfolds before
you and, even if only for a moment, you have found the
far dimensions of your perception.
What else might you
find here?
