CHICAGO - 3D Timelapse (1776 – 2026) | No AI

My drone took off from a Fulton Market rooftop at golden hour and flew 250 years back in time: from a prairie portage between two waters to a city of 2,731,585 people. No AI imagery: everything is rendered from code, open data and 3D models. Real building footprints and sourced dates: Du Sable's farm and Fort Dearborn, the Town of Chicago in 1833, the I&M Canal and the first locomotive, a city raised out of the mud, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 hour by hour, the first skyscrapers, the 1893 White City and the first Ferris wheel, a river made to flow backwards, the lakefront built from landfill, Wrigley, Tribune and the Merchandise Mart, Marina City, the Hancock and the Sears Tower, Millennium Park, the Cubs' 2016 parade and the New Year fireworks of 2026. Traffic on the real road network, 'L' trains on their real lines, planes at O'Hare and Midway, and ships from lake schooners to river tours. Chapters 0:00 Chicago in 11 seconds 0:11 From a Fulton Market rooftop to a prairie portage 0:39 Fort Dearborn: 1803–1816 0:53 The Town of Chicago and the city charter 1:22 Canal, railroads and a city raised out of the mud 2:13 The Great Chicago Fire: October 8–10, 1871 3:07 Rebuilding and the first skyscrapers 3:47 1893: the White City and the first Ferris wheel 4:16 The Loop and a river flowing backwards 4:55 Navy Pier, the Michigan Avenue Bridge and the 1920s 5:56 Expressways, the green river and Marina City 6:45 The Hancock and the world's tallest tower 7:11 Navy Pier, Millennium Park and new towers 7:50 The Cubs, St. Regis and New Year 2026 8:26 Chicago today: 2.7 million people 8:45 Low battery: flying home What is approximate The pre-1871 city: building years before the data's records are estimated from neighbouring buildings; the wooden city burned in 1871 is an illustrative grid. The burned area follows the 1871 McDonald map; the hours of the fire follow period accounts, which disagree. The lakefront landfill (Lake Front Park, Grant Park, Museum Campus, Northerly Island, Burnham Park, Streeterville, Lincoln Park) is drawn from historical outlines; its edges and years are approximate. The 1893 White City, the first Ferris wheel and three demolished towers (Home Insurance, the 1885 Board of Trade, the Masonic Temple) are rebuilt from plans and sourced dimensions; their shapes are illustrative. Fort Dearborn is a stand-in log fort. Terrain height is exaggerated. Traffic, trains, planes, ships, crowds, lights and fireworks are representative, not counts; the 2016 parade crowd figure is the city's own estimate. The Union Stock Yard pens and packing houses are illustrative. River bridges appear in the approximate year of each street's first bridge (from street and bridge histories); bridge decks and the trains of each era are representative models, not exact replicas. Population between censuses is interpolated, and before 1840 (and around the 1889 annexation) it is a historical estimate (marked on screen). The drone's battery is fictional; altitude, heading and coordinates are the camera's real values. Sources Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright Building footprints: City of Chicago Data Portal (Building Footprints), modified Population: U.S. Census Bureau 3D models CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Sketchfab; scaled, recoloured: "Controller" by relisu https://sketchfab.com/models/81a0f47b... Subscribe for the next city → @CityUnfolds