CHICAGO -- This largest of American lakefront cities has long relied on feats of engineering to keep its sewage away from Lake Michigan, its primary freshwater resource and recreational crown jewel. In 1900, the Sanitary District of Chicago reversed the Chicago River's flow, sending wastewater from homes, businesses and streets west toward the Illinois and Mississippi rivers rather than continue to foul the city's waterfront along what today is Lakeshore Drive. Go to story #1

Carl Sandburg's famous moniker for Chicago -- "City of the Big Shoulders" -- remains as apt today as it was nearly a century ago, when the young poet penned his seminal work, "Chicago," to describe a city that's "Stormy, husky, brawling." Nearly a century later, however, Chicago's leaders are giving the city's broad shoulders a somewhat softer makeover. Go to story #2