Northerly Island

Northerly Island is not the only "green" work underway in Chicago – not even close. The city has also invested in projects to reduce high temperatures, flooding, and water contamination caused by buildings and roads that absorb heat but not stormwater. You may have already heard about the garden planted on top of City Hall, but that is just one of many in the area. In fact, the city has more than 5 million square feet of rooftop gardens, more than any other U.S. city. On the ground, concrete and asphalt alleys are being replaced with pavement that can absorb water. The Green Alley Program has also installed drainage systems that funnel water away from sewers and into the ground to be absorbed by plants and trees. Throughout the city, parks have been expanded and hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted. And residents are learning how to capture and reuse rainwater, find native plants, and fertilize their soil with compost thanks to the Chicago Sustainable Backyards Program.

The Chicago area has also undergone hundreds of restoration projects in the last few decades. These projects have rebuilt wetlands, returned farm fields to native prairie grassland, removed old and worn out dams that disrupt the natural flow of rivers, built rock reefs for fish and other aquatic wildlife, reconnected habitats divided by urbanization, and cleaned up pollution from the region's industrial past.