Chicago is now facing the momentous fact that fifty years hence, when the children of to-day are at the height of their power and influence, this city will be larger than London: that is, larger than any existing city. Not even an approximate estimate can be ventured as to just how many millions the city will then contain. Mr. Bion J. Arnold, after a careful discussion of the problem of the increase that may be expected, reaches the conclusion that if the national and local conditions governing the population of Chicago shall average in the future exactly as in the past the population in 1952 will be 13,250,000. Mr. Arnold hesitates to predict such an increase in population, just as the most optimistic rebuilder in 1871 would have hesitated to predict two millions in thirty years. Yet it is apparent that the tendency is towards city life. “When the Pacific Coast shall have a population of twenty millions,” prophesies James J. Hill, “Chicago will be the largest city in the world.” The completion of the Panama Canal, bringing about a more rapid development of the Mississippi Valley; the opening of China and Japan and the Far East to American trade and manufactures; the expansion of the wheat-producing area in the North; and the conversion of the desert lands of the West into arable acres by means of irrigation—all are factors in the growth of Chicago. [Illustration: XXXV. CHICAGO, AND DIAGRAM OF LAKE MICHIGAN. Proposed roadway to connect all the towns along the shores of the Lake. COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO ] Moreover, city life has attractions that make a strong appeal to human nature. Opportunities for large success, for wealth and power and social consideration, for amusement and instruction, for the increase of knowledge and the cultivation of taste, are greater for the average person in the city than in the country. The city, therefore, is constantly drawing from the country the young men and women of ambition and self-reliance, who are lured thither by the great prizes which in a democracy are open to the competition of all.