OUR KIND OF TOWN. Fast Company's U.S. City of the year, Chicago is.

The real Chicago isn't so easy to keep up with. It's constantly reinventing itself. Jumpy. Agitated. Impatient. It's as if the place is trembling. Move aside. Don't linger. And if you're going to dawdle, get out of the way. But what any Chicagoan will also tell you is that the past is very much present. It doesn't go away. It shouldn't. In fact, that's Chicago's lure and its beauty: its ability to take what was and figure out what could be.

And thus another reason for me to pay close attention to the Northern Illinois strategic plan. The academic pecking order in the state system is somewhat ambiguous once one gets away from the flagship institution, which has been weakened by internal dissension and state stinginess, and it matters for developing and retaining human capital that the educational institutions of Greater Chicago do their part.