Saturday, May 09, 2009

Let's Just Move Champaign to Kankakee and Make Chicago a Closer Place to Be

I'd like to add a little urban spice to our university life.

I live in Champaign and I love being here. But there are times when I love to get to the big city and go to the Art Institute, visit the Field Museum, spend some time at Lincoln Park Zoo. They have great restaurants, the lake, and I can go to programs at the Newberry Library. The only drawback is that Chicago is three hours away. That may not seem like much, but six hours of driving is a lot in one day if you only want to spend the day. But if Chicago were closer, we could go more often. I would like to have the conveniences of living in Champaign with the little extras that Chicago can give me. So let's just get rid of Kankakee and move Champaign there.

2 comments:

  1. Do you know the story -- they say it's true, but I wonder. When the state legislature was choosing between Kankakee and Urbana for a new university and a state prison, they flipped a coin -- and Urbana lost! I do sometimes wonder how different things would be if we were closer to Chicago.

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  2. I didn't know this one. I did know about choosing Champaign because of the railroad.

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