A Bold Plan to Swim in Chicago's Rivers by 2030

Good urban planning can make you smile," begins an article by Blair Kamin reviewing the "Our Great Rivers" plan, recently released by the Metropolitan Planning Council.

The 41-page plan "comes with a headline-generating goal," writes Kamin: "Make the now-polluted rivers so clean that people will be able to swim in them by 2030." 

Among the plan's "bold strokes," as described by Kamin, an idea "to create parks in rivers, not just alongside them":

Non-navigable stretches of the rivers, including the South Side's notorious Bubbly Creek and the north branch of the Chicago River east of Goose Island, could be remade into "instream parks" planted with wetlands vegetation and dotted with wildlife.

In addition to Kamin's review of the rivers plan, Leonor Vivanco provides a traditional news report, describing results of the 18-month planning process that produced "Our Great Rivers."