Thomas Tiemann, Jefferson Pilot Professor of Economics, and Steven Bednar, assistant professor of economics, traveled with five students in their Urban Economics class to Chicago on Oct. 23 to apply the student’s classroom learning in a real-life setting.

Tiemann had three main objectives for the students:

• To see that a city is the center of commerce, culture and population;

• To see that cities are vibrant and are places where face-to-face diversity makes for more productivity; and

• To see the gradient of the city – how the density and height of the buildings rise as you go towards the center of the city.

The students visited the Chicago Board of Trade; took a short architecture and public art tour of Chicago’s downtown; visited the Chicago Center for Green Technology, which demonstrates green building technologies; spent time at the Museum of Contemporary Art; rode the “L” trains; and finished the trip at the top of the Willis Tower.

“Chicago was great because we got to see the concepts we learned in the classroom mapped out in a real world setting,” said Essie Lazarus ’14.

The trip was funded by the LSB and the Department of Economics.