Raising Chicago

About this board game

Raising Chicago is a strategic board game for 2–4 players, with games lasting about 120 minutes. Set in 19th-century Chicago, it challenges players to help solve the city’s sanitation crisis by raising buildings to make room for a new sewer system.

Chicago stood only a few feet above the shoreline of Lake Michigan, leaving little natural drainage and creating unhealthy conditions. Standing water helped spread epidemics, including typhoid fever and dysentery, while the 1854 cholera outbreak killed six percent of the city’s population. In 1856, engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough proposed a citywide sewerage plan, which the city council adopted.

Because the sewer could not be built underground, the city chose a radical solution: raise its buildings and hide the new sewer system beneath the new street level. Each player represents one of the four companies created to tackle this enormous undertaking.

• Place a tile on a resource slot connected to one of five building projects.
• Claim the resource covered by your tile.
• Evaluate every project after all players have placed their tiles.
• Pay resources to complete the winning project and claim its reward.
• Place your tiles as levels beneath the building on the board.

Success depends on gathering resources, choosing attractive projects, and placing buildings cleverly. You can also earn points by doing the most work in a ward and by meeting the demands of council people.

In Raising Chicago, every project decision contributes to the city’s transformation—and to the race for victory. Only the most successful company will prove it can raise Chicago best.