Overwhelmed

As a life long Chicago with enough mileage on me (pushing sixty....rapidly!) and a life long love of my city, I have it admit it: I'm overwhelmed! Obviously I remember the bad days of white flight, dying industries and dying neighborhoods, council wars, Beirut-by-the-Bay, and movement of Chicagoland away from its core. I have, however, also followed the city's revival from the start, even when it was a trickle and a small counter trend to the decline. Let me zero in on a small part of the revival: the Saturday Tribune. Specifically the real estate section's pages listing new developments throughout the Chicago area. At one point, there might have been two, three entries for Chicago, compared to 20 or so for Schaumburg. But change came, slow though it might have been. More Chicago developments went in. I remember looking at the pix in detail, gratified that these new structures were under construction, and having a real sense of where the development was occurring. When the trend to redevelop intensified, I continued to follow it closely, having a sense of each major project going up....where it was, when it would be going up. I was on a high. Today though, I may have to throw in the towel (happily though, with no element of dispair). I give up. The recent wave has flattened me. I have to admit it: I just can't keep up! So many good things are happening, so many projects (with quite a few of substantial height) that I'm just going to have to sit back, relax, and watch, but without a snowball's chance in hell of being able to conceptionize what the heck is happening. I guess I just got steamrolled by Chicago's development. Not necessarily a bad thing.>