Opera Lofts Chicago

Chicago, Illinois, is the largest city in the State of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. The Chicago metropolitan area has a population of over 9.4 million in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, making it the third largest metropolitan area in the United States. Chicago is located along the shore of Lake Michigan. City monikers include "the land of Chicago, the Windy City, Chi Town, Chi-City", the "Second City" and the "city of broad shoulders".

Chicago is a major center of transportation, industry, culture, medicine and higher education.

A transportation hub, Chicago is the third largest intermodal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore. Chicago is one of the greatest centers of passenger rail service in the country with Amtrak providing connections to New York, Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington DC. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) operates an extensive bus network and a system of rapid transit know locally as the "L" (for pillars), which includes services from Midway and O'Hare airports. Chicago is unique among major cities to deliver 150 miles of bike lanes on streets, 10,000 bike racks and a state of the art central station commuter bike in Millennium Park.

Chicago has ten highways crossing the city and the suburbs that I understand 90 (also known in some segments like the Kennedy Expressway, Chicago Skyway, Dan Ryan Expressway and the O'Hare extension), I-57 (Bishop Ford Freeway), I-94 (Kennedy Expressway), I-55 (Stevenson Highway), I-290 (Eisenhower Highway), I-294 (Tri-State Tollway), I-80 (Kingery Highway), I-355 (North-South Tollway), I-190 (O'Hare expansion) and I-88 (Turnpike East-West and Memorial Reagan).

Midway International Airport and O'Hare International service the Chicago area. In 2005, O'Hare was listed as the busiest airport in the world by aircraft movements and the second busiest by total passenger traffic. Gary / Chicago International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana, serves the airport and the third area of Chicago. Chicago / Rockford International Airport is a regional base for United Parcel Service flights, some passenger flights and occasionally as a relief to O'Hare. Chicago is also the world headquarters of United Airlines, the second airline in the world.

The city has been assessed as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to a high level of diversification. Some of the biggest employers include over 66 Fortune 500 companies such as Boeing, Sara Lee, Walgreens, Motorola, Caterpillar, Sears, State Farm Insurance, Allstate, Deere, McDonald's, Aon, Office Max, USG and the Tribune Company. The city hosts four major stock markets and future, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Board of Options Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Based in the Chicago area are several medical products and services companies such as Baxter International, Abbott Laboratories and the health of the financial services unit of General Electric.

Chi-Town offers a variety of culture from its deep history of modern art today. The Museum Campus is a park on the 10-acre lake sitting on the south side of Grant Park and its surrounding three of the city's main museums: Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Shedd Aquarium. Grant Park also houses the Art Institute of Chicago, a partner of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The only surviving building of Expo 1893 is the Museum of Science and Industry. Chicago museums also include the Oriental Institute, part of the University of Chicago, the Museum of Freedom, Chicago History Museum, DuSable Museum of African American History, Museum of Mexican Fine Arts Center, Museum of Contemporary Art , P.