If you love the Riverwalk and Lakefront Trail, get ready to embrace more of the same along the city's two major bodies of water. The Chicago River and Lake Michigan will take center stage next week, when mayors from around the world descend on the city for an international conversation on the future of urban waterways.
On March 13, leaders from 19 of the world’s largest cities are set to attend a forum on urban waterfront development. The summit will be cohosted by the cities of Chicago and Paris, and the mayors of both cities say collaboration and inspiration are at the heart of the event.
“This forum will allow mayors from around the world to exchange ideas and solutions on mixed-use development projects around our waterways to generate economic, environmental and social benefits for our cities,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a news release. Projects along Lake Michigan and the Chicago River have become a top priority in the city, particularly as local government, community organizations and private investors undertake scores of new development projects along the river.
Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River, says the city and developers have an entirely new vision of the river’s future—a vision that includes greater public access, habitat restoration and commercial development that embraces the waterway as a natural resource. She hopes that the event will help promote and reinforce the types of development projects that have taken place along the river in recent years.
“Bringing together these leaders is a way of understanding what else is possible for the river,” says Frisbie, who cites the Riverwalk as a great example of balancing commercial, recreational and environmental interests. “By putting the spotlight on the river, we’re awakening the entire city to say this is a natural resource, it belongs to us and we have real opportunity here if we work together.”
The city said the forum will include two discussion panels. The first will consider economic development and innovative uses of urban waterways, while the second will focus on ways to use waterways to promote environmental efforts important to cities in the 21st century.
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