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Originally Posted by SSLL
I think building Peotone is a bad idea. Expand O'Hare, maybe even Midway. The third airport of Chicagoland should be Gary-Chicago International Airport.
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Midway really can't be expanded... the area around it is actually pretty dense, so every acre of additional airport space would displace people. Around O'Hare, by contrast, the portion of the total additional space that includes homes isn't that great. It makes sense to bulldoze 200 acres of homes to add 1,000 acres to an airport, but not to bulldoze 1,000 acres of homes to add 1,000 acres to an airport, IMO.
You're completely right about Gary-Chicago, and I think just about every Chicagoan would agree. The problem is state politicians downstate. They don't care what's best for the city/metro, they care about state tax coffers, and Gary is across state lines in Indiana. It makes far more sense for the region, and far more sense to anybody from Chicago who had to actually use the airport, but they don't get their tax dollars.
I just wish it was easier to reallign state borders to actually make sense. Northwest Indiana should be part of Illinois. Give East St. Louis & environs to Missouri, etc... you could probably turn Missouri into a blue state in the bargain.