I grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where over time I had seen big property developers illegally filled parts of the lakes to build high demand lake front developments. Result? more frequent flash flooding during monsoon as the waterways are not as wide or deep. More than two thirds of earth's surface is water and we ought to maintain that balance for our ecosystem. While this is a photo of Chicago, and it's very unlikely that it will have similar fate as Dhaka, the scary thought did cross my mind.