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Reversal of Fortune

99% Invisible

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The History of the City of Chicago

The city of Chicago was growing so fast that engineers decided to jack up the streets. But they didn't do it themselves: They just piled dirt on top of old streets, dredged from the river bottom. The work went on around the clock for 20 years and cost $1 billion. By 1880, there were more than two million people in the city; water intakes had also been built.

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