Make No Little Plans: A Call for Collaborators
Horizon Lines: Chicago Courtyard City by 2050
For Horizon Lines: Chicago 2050, we’re advancing a plan to make Chicago the new world capital of courtyard urbanism.
And the plan includes a system—involving city, industry, and developers—that will build a city that is dense enough for urban life and livable enough for families to stay.
The Opportunity
Today, Chicago primarily produces two types of housing:
large, expensive high-rises
low-density homes that limit supply
Predictably, people leave when they need space, or stay and compromise.
This is not a demand problem. It is a production problem that is solved through flexible zoning, building designs that are standardized for prefabrication “kit of parts” construction, and a scalable development system that includes the participations of thousands of small developers and local builders.
A Pattern We Already Know
Chicago’s best neighborhoods emerged through a shared pattern:
mid-rise density
buildings aligned to the street
mixed-use corridors
incremental growth
This proposal revives the old pattern, but points it to a network of mid-rise courtyard blocks—organized around shared green space and built across the city over time.
A Call for Collaborators
We’re building a coalition of:
residents
practitioners
elected officials
If this resonates, we want to hear from you. Email me at projects@courtyardurbanist.com, and we’ll send you the proposal.
The Vision
A Chicago that grows not through megaprojects, but through a flexible building code, industrialized construction technology, and a coalition of small developers and builders—green, walkable, family-capable neighborhoods across the city.
