I love me a good rendering — those rose-colored-glasses drawings of what a proposed development could look like, given all the money in the world and a complete absence of rules, regulations or realities.

Spaces in renderings are never crowded. Litter doesn’t exist. Everything is beautifully manicured and perfectly maintained. Forget about piles of snow blackened by car exhaust. In Renderland, it’s always spring or early summer, and the sun is always shining unless it’s night, and then everything glows like a firefly. Renderings are literally silent, but I imagine they probably sound something like a giggle. If I could live inside a rendering, I would. 

Why am I blathering about renderings? Because an entity called World Business Chicago just dropped an amazing set, announcing the six finalists in a competition I didn’t even know was underway. 

That competition — “Horizon Lines: Visions for Chicago 2050” — invited “architects, designers, artists, planners, community leaders, students and creative thinkers to propose bold ideas that could shape Chicago’s future over the next 25 years.”

“Think Millennium Park,” World Business Chicago said.

“Oh, and don’t worry about things like cost, engineering studies, zoning requirements or the laws of physics,” they added (I’m paraphrasing).

The finalists delivered. Notably, especially for an urban competition, the majority of these shoot-for-the-moon visions are nature-based. I’m allowing myself a little fist pump.   

I sincerely gasped at the renderings for the concept called Repairing the Scars of the Interstate Highway Era, which desperately needs a rebrand, btw. (Something like Wonderways or Agriflats, just to name two other finalists.)

Think Millennium Park, only over the Eisenhower Expressway. (Metropolitan Planning Council)

RSIHE, or WISHES as I’m going to call it, proposes capping the Dan Ryan and Eisenhower expressways with green civic space. This team clearly took “Think Millennium Park” to heart because that’s what WISHES is, only over highways instead of a rail yard. You know what? That would be amazing. I might actually voluntarily venture onto the Ike for the first time ever just to visit this rendering. And hey, if the WISHES team didn’t have to factor practicalities into their plan, well then I’m going to pretend there’s no such thing as construction. Let’s do this!

Check out all the finalists’ presentations online or see them in person on display at the Chicago Cultural Center. Public feedback is open through July 24 and the winner will be announced Sept. 15.

ICYMI

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Clippings: News & Notes 

Dangerous plants have their own garden. Who's up for a field trip? (The Alnwick Garden)

• Local: I don’t remember this spring being nice at all but apparently it was, according to the National Weather Service Chicago office. Per its summary of meteorological spring (March-May), temperatures were 2.9 degrees above normal, courtesy of a mid-April hot spell that skewed results. May, which I could have sworn was miserably cold, was only .5 degrees below normal.
  

• Illinois: Prairie Rivers Network is building a body of research demonstrating the impacts of pesticide drift in Illinois — the way herbicides, insecticides and fungicides travel far from their intended targets. In PRN’s latest report, they tested for the presence of pesticides in trees located near playgrounds, walking paths, picnic areas and other public spaces. And they found plenty, throughout the entire state.  
  

• Midwest: If you think Chicago has a goose problem, you haven’t been to Rochester, Minnesota. As recently as the mid-2000s, the city of roughly 125,000 people had a Canada goose population at 20,000 to 40,000. Minnesota Public Radio has an interesting report on efforts to control this big honking problem.
  

• Also out of Minnesota: Some cool climate research. U.S. Geological Survey scientists recently collected sediment cores from Lake LaSalle, the deepest inland lake in Minnesota. The sediment will reveal 10,000 years of climate data, including floods and droughts.
  

• Great Lakes: The first piping plover chicks are beginning to hatch across the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, another unattached plover male, nicknamed Blue Dot, has been seen hanging around Montrose Beach. I’ve been so focused on Chicago’s plover drama, I completely missed the soap opera playing out between Michigan’s oldest loon pair. MLive.com will catch you up.
  

• Do you like taking long strolls on the beach? Well, if you added up every mile of Great Lakes coastline, it’d be like walking from Michigan to Australia.    
  

• National: The Trump administration is dismantling a $370 million network of 900 deep-sea monitors that were deployed 10 years ago to gather critical continuous, real-time information on ocean currents, coastal environments and marine ecosystems. One oceanographer said of the decision, “We are effectively choosing to navigate an increasingly volatile ocean with diminishing visibility.”
  

• Chicago is home to a sizable population of black-crowned night herons — watching these birds at one of their favorite fishing spots on the Chicago River is my nightly entertainment in the summer. But New York City’s once thriving population of night herons is in freefall. Researchers are trying to figure out why.
  

• Global: BBC News reports on an invasive plant in the UK that’s being destroyed by a killer fungus, and that sounds about right given the state of the planet in 2026. This report also answers a question I’ve had about what invasives the U.S. has “exported.” One would be the gray squirrel — and the Brits are not appreciative.
  

• Wildcard: There’s a Poison Garden in England where 100 species of dangerous plants are cultivated behind locked gates and I totally think we should all take a field trip!

Creature Feature: Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly

The federally endangered Hine's emerald dragonfly makes a surprise appearance at the Obama Presidential Center. (bookguy / iStock)

I did not have “reference to an obscure endangered insect” on my list of things to expect from the Obama Presidential Center. But the campus’ playground does indeed include a whimsical allusion to the Hine’s emerald dragonfly. At one point, the Hine’s was actually thought to be extinct until it was “rediscovered” in Door County in 1987, but it is barely holding on in a handful of areas in the Midwest.

In Illinois, the Hine’s population is concentrated in the northeast corner of the state, particularly along the Des Plaines River. The DuPage County Forest Preserve District has played an instrumental role in efforts to save the Hine’s, including supporting native crayfish populations, whose burrows provide the Hine’s with habitat.

Nature Calls: Events & Activities

Monumental bubbles await at Chicago Botanic Garden where a new immersive exhibit opens this weekend. (Chicago Botanic Garden)

• Everyone’s invited to the 30th anniversary celebration of Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, no RSVP required. Info stations will be scattered across the site, with opportunities to learn more about the large-scale restoration work that’s been undertaken over the past three decades.
  

• It’s the opening weekend for “Evanescent,” a new immersive installation of giant bubble sculptures at Chicago Botanic Garden. Swing by Saturday or Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., for a family-friendly festival kicking off what the garden has dubbed Shimmering Summer.

• Join the band of volunteers who’ve rallied around Gensburg-Markham Prairie to restore what was once one of the finest examples of tallgrass prairie in the world. The group has a work day planned for Saturday, 9 a.m. to noon, when they’ll be collecting seed and knocking back invasives. No experience necessary, but RSVP encouraged.
  

• Friends of the Chicago River holds monthly cleanups at Canal Origins Park, 10 a.m. to noon, in conjunction with the McKinley Park Development Council. Put these dates on your calendar: June 13, July 11, August 8 and September 12. Be sure to register in advance so organizers can plan supplies.
  

• “Jaws” is often credited as blazing the trail for every “summer blockbuster” movie that followed in its wake, but it was a PR disaster for sharks. Steve Kessel, director of marine research at Shedd Aquarium, is helping sharks reclaim their narrative. He’ll be busting myths about the creatures during a pre-show chat at a special screening of “Jaws” on June 24 at the Music Box Theatre. Tickets are on sale now.