[22] The report to the Street Paving Committee of the Commercial Club on the street paving problem of Chicago, by John W. Alvord, C. E., and an opinion by John S. Miller, Esq., on maintenance and repair of Chicago streets (1904) is at once so comprehensive and so compact a document that it is sufficient simply to call attention to it. After discussing tendencies in this country and Europe, Mr. Alvord reaches this conclusion: “Everywhere the main result is the same. So soon as wealth and population increase to the point where luxury and comfort can demand it, the economical and more durable pavements of stone or granite on heavily traveled streets give way to pavement of shorter life and higher maintenance cost, but of immensely greater comfort to the public in the cessation of noise, smoothness for traffic, and ease with which they may be kept in condition.” [Illustration: CIX. CHICAGO. THE PROPOSED PLAZA ON MICHIGAN AVENUE. COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO ] CHAPTER VII THE HEART OF CHICAGO: OPPORTUNITY FOR CREATING A CONVENIENT AND UNIFIED CITY: MICHIGAN AVENUE AS THE BASE OF A GREAT COMPOSITION: THE WIDENING OF HALSTED STREET: A GROUP-PLAN FOR THE FIELD MUSEUM, THE CRERAR LIBRARY, AND THE ART INSTITUTE: CONGRESS STREET AS THE MAIN AXIS OF THE CITY: THE CIVIC CENTER The Heart of Chicago is that portion of the city area between Halsted Street and the Lake, and between the main river and Twelfth Street. Within the next few years these boundaries will be enlarged to include Chicago Avenue on the north, Ashland Avenue on the west, and Twenty-second Street on the south. The treatment of this area, having a length of approximately three miles north and south, and a width of four miles from Ashland Avenue to the ends of the two great piers planned to extend into the Lake at Chicago Avenue and again at Twenty-second Street, involves the most serious problems encountered in the plan of the city. As the population of Chicago spreads itself over the area between the Lake and the Des Plaines River the pressure on the Heart of Chicago must of necessity increase in geometrical ratio. The ground, being devoted to business purposes, will become so valuable that the buildings will rise to the height permitted by law. These buildings will be used for offices by corporations whose plants are scattered throughout the wide territory of which Chicago is the metropolis; for shops and banks; for hotels; for theatres and other places of entertainment; for railroad passenger terminals; for churches and public or semi-public structures, all of which will be resorted to by hundreds of thousands of people who must pass daily into and out of this comparatively small area.