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An online and photo-panel exhibit created by the Newberry Library for the cnetennial of the Plan of Chicago

Planners and Reformers

An unprecedented partnership between designers and civic leaders made the Plan of Chicago possible. But the plan did more than promote a city: it established urban planning as a profession and a civic responsibility. Its approach is best summarized in the advice often attributed to Burnham: "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die."

Lunch meeting of key planners in D. H. Burnham and Company offices, with illustrations from the Plan of Chicago on walls (1908). Chicago History Museum, ICHi-03560