How Well Do You Utilize Your Space?

My neighbor and I decided to take a trip down to the Windy City yesterday. Talk about excitement! Chicago style pizza, gorgeous architecture, shopping galore & every form of transportation imaginable is available. As we got off of the train at the Ogilvie Transportation Center,  I looked around and realized how well space is utilized in the City.

On any business day, over a half a million people occupy an area that is less than three square miles. No wonder space management is essential in Chicago. Every inch of space is used. I can’t imagine what it would be like without the transportation system.

It is almost impossible to walk everywhere in the city unless you have several days to sight see, so we took several modes of transportation. We rode the Metra train to the city then took a water taxi to Michigan Ave. Taking the subway for kicks was not as fun as I remembered but the girls found it somewhat interesting.

Buildings are constructed upward to save on ground space, taxi’s transport by water & underground trains…well, you know! Ingenious.

My favorite part of Chicago is the Magnificent Mile. One mile of shopping and dining! We stumbled upon the Hershey’s store on our way to the John Hancock Building, which produces every kind of dessert you could think of. Cookies are as large as your head and they make unbelievably gorgeous S’mores! We even saw the world’s largest Hersey’s chocolate bar which was a whopping 5 pounds. Only 11,096 calories!

Looking out from the John Hancock’s 96th floor, we spotted other space saving ideas such as several swimming pools on the roof tops of some very tall buildings.

On our way back to the train station I noticed many outdoor patios placed almost right up to the street. For a little privacy, several restaurants used natural bamboo or plants as a type of divider. It seemed to work well with the limited amount of space for seating.

All in all we had a great time!