The harmonious arrangement and quiet order of the World’s Columbian Exposition contrasted greatly with the city’s noise, dirt, and congestion. Could the busy commercial city be made as appealing?

Daniel Burnham, architect, planner, and primary author of the Plan of Chicago (left). Edward Bennett, coauthor of the Plan, oversaw many of its accomplishments in the 1910s and 1920s (right).

The Senate Park Commission, advised by Burnham, prepared a 1902 plan that reshaped the monumental core of Washington, D.C.

Burnham prepared a 1905 plan for San Francisco, but it received little attention after the city was destroyed in 1906 by earthquake and fire.

The time has come to bring order out of
the chaos incident to rapid growth.

The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 attracted 21 million visitors—at a time when the nation’s population was only 66 million. The visitors were awed by the clean, electrically lighted, harmoniously planned grounds of the World’s Fair. Interest in city planning took root across the country, and Daniel Burnham, Director of Works for the fair, became nationally renowned for his planning skills. He aided the Senate Park Commission with a 1902 plan for Washington, D.C., and prepared plans for Manila and Cleveland. His plan for San Francisco was delivered shortly before the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the city.

But Chicago was his home, and solutions to the growing city’s problems were always on Burnham’s mind. Immediately after the fair, a plan to connect Grant and Jackson Parks with a lakefront parkway attracted attention, but no results. Finally, in 1906–1907, Burnham began work on a Plan of Chicago under the sponsorship of the Commercial Club. Burnham and the Plan’s coauthor, architect Edward Bennett, hired draftsmen and began collecting information from officials around the world. In rooms built on the roof of the Railway Exchange Building at Michigan and Jackson, experts came to offer ideas, and tracing after tracing was made over street maps of the city, looking for the most logical solutions to the physical layout and infrastructure needs of the metropolis.

On July 4, 1909, the Plan of Chicago was ceremoniously presented to the city. But more importantly, in the months that followed, the Commercial Club’s influential members pushed for official recognition of the Plan and worked for adoption of its recommendations.

In 1900, the city limits were well beyond the built up areas (tan), though a few suburbs were already well established. The Plan anticipated that the Des Plaines River would become the natural boundary of the city.