On Chicago's South Side, 140,000 acres of brownfields and other underused land are just sitting there. But Illinois is putting $17 million into turning that fallow ground into what will be the largest city park in the lower 48. (Alaska has one that's bigger.)
The park will be called the Millennium Reserve and will promote wildlife conservation as well as giving Chicagoans a place to bike, walk, and whatnot. And as the Atlantic shows so simply in the graphic above, it’s way, way bigger than Central Park. In fact, this sucker's so big that it's 9.5 times the size of all of Manhattan, and almost as big as Chicago itself. If the Illinois government knows what's good for it, it will save some funding for signage and park maps: 140,000 acres is a big chunk of park to get lost in.
