The Midwest and the crossroads city called Chicago

Regional foods: the Chicago dog
Originally uploaded by trudeau

Chicago profile, acc to Wikipedia:

- capital of the US region known as the Midwest.
- almost 10 million in the metropolitan population (city plus its suburbs)
- founded only 2 years before Shreveport: 1833.
- on a historic portage between L. Michigan and the Miss R.
- a hub for finance, transportation, wealth.
- O'Hare Airport 2nd busiest in world.
- name based on Miami-Illinois word for "wild onions."
- 1893, Chicago World's Columbian Exposition considered the most influential world's fair in history.
- 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi: world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the U. of Chicago in the Manhattan Project.
- ethnic diversity: 39.9% White, Non-Hispanic Whites: 31.5%, 34.6% Black or African American, 4.9% Asian, 18.6% from some other race. Hispanics or Latinos make up 27.8% of the population.
- Irish (6.6%); German (6.5%); Polish (5.8%); Italian (3.5%)
- Chicago pizza: both deep dish and thin crust.