page_title: History of Chicago
section_title: Post World War II
hierarchical_section_title: History of Chicago / 20th century / Post World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, Chicago, Illinois, US
context_page_description: Chicago has played a central role in American economic, cultural and political history. Since the 1850s Chicago has been one of the dominant metropolises in the Midwestern United States, and has been the largest city in the Midwest since the 1880 census. The area's recorded history begins with the arrival of French explorers, missionaries and fur traders in the late 17th century and their interaction with the local Pottawatomie Native Americans. Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was the first permanent non-indigenous settler in the area, having a house at the mouth of the Chicago River in the late 18th century. There were small settlements and a U.S. Army fort, but the soldiers and settlers were all driven off in 1812. The modern city was incorporated in 1837 by Northern businessmen and grew rapidly from real estate speculation and the realization that it had a commanding position in the emerging inland transportation network, based on lake traffic and railroads, controlling access from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River basin.
context_section_description: Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe (in particular Displaced Persons from Eastern Europe) created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing tracts on Chicago's Northwest and Southwest Sides. The city was extensively photographed during the post–war years by street photographers such as Richard Nickel and Vivian Maier.
  Starting in the 1950s, in the postwar desire for new and improved housing, aided by new highways and commuter train lines, many middle and higher income Americans began moving from the inner-city of Chicago to the suburbs.  Changes in industry after 1950, with restructuring of the stockyards and steel industries, led to massive job losses in the city for working-class people. The city population shrank by nearly 700,000. The City Council devised "Plan 21" to improve neighborhoods and focused on creating "Suburbs within the city" near downtown and the lakefront. It built public housing to try to improve housing standards in the city. As a result, many poor were uprooted from newly created enclaves of Black, Latino and poor in neighborhoods such as Near North, Wicker Park, Lakeview, Uptown, Cabrini–Green, West Town and Lincoln Park. The passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s also affected Chicago and other northern cities. In the 1960s and 1970s, many middle and upper income Americans continued to move from the city for better housing and schools in the suburbs.
  Office building resumed in the 1960s. When completed in 1974, the Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower, at 1451 feet was the world's tallest building. It was designed by the famous Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed many of the city's famous buildings.
caption: Picasso sculpture in Chicago, Illinois—the sculptor refused to be paid the $100,000 fee due him and donated it to the people of Chicago
exif: {}