Basement Whatever

The book’s thesis is Chicago made the Great West, and the Great West made Chicago, and untangling which wagged which is impossible because they needed each other. The other less explicit thesis is that Chicago made great things, and that happened because its leaders and citizens believed in making great things, like turning the dreary Chicago River, a slow-moving silty creek, into the best harbor on Lake Michigan, which even required changing the direction it flowed.
— Read on walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/not-walking-chicago