Chicago has recently passed an ordinance limiting the amount of glass allowed in home construction.
Down the street from me is a newly constructed glass guzzling home that clearly pushes the ordinance limits.
Why the need for inordinate amount of glass and why the huge, mansion homes which look more like museums than intimate family hovels.
The answer lies in the dreaded inevitable prospect of the looming winter.(excessive money aside)
Chicago has endured the windy part of its legacy with some discomfort but the recent blizzard which for the first time in Chicago history caused the schools to close is still fresh on the resident's minds. In addition to the wind and the snow that makes walking hazardous is the ever present cold preserved by Lake Michigan which is the root cause of the excessive heat in summer and cold in winter; the opposite of an ocean that keeps weather moderate.(of course global warming contributes its fair share of projected and real discomfort)
What this translates into on the every day mundane life expectancy is the inability to get up in the winter cold days, and an even greater inability to go outside. Jogging will be a distant memory and bike riders will be few to none for almost 6 months.
This explains why the house, no matter how big, how conversant with the great beyond through it's mammoth use of glass, becomes for one and all, a jail. A $15 million Jail. You gotta love it!
As a rule I am not one to hibernate as I learned people do here in winter but I will be held up in my home with the rest of the Chicago residents when the brutal weather hits for long endless dark days. And that is why I had my windows cleaned. To be able to be locked inside while feeling in contact with the great cruel Chicago Environs.
And that is why there is no need to use force to end the Occupy Chicago movement or the OWS denizens; winter weather will bring the troops back to their warm abodes, or so it is hoped or rather forecast.
This is where planning count.
Preparing for the not so distant future.
Linda Zises
recent Chicago resident
