Lay of the Land
When one speaks of the ruins of Old Chicago they are really referring to the former core of the city stretching from the shores of Lake Michigan on the East to the De Plaines River on the West and from Lake Avenue in the North to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to the South.  This is the area of highest magic activity and where the great skyscrapers once stood.  Outside of this area the city buildings have been picked clean by scavengers through the dark ages and the numerous forest preserves and parks have overgrown most of the streets and buildings returning much of the surrounding area back to forest and marshland.  This level of containment was achieved by the NEMA forces that eventually became the CS State of Chi-Town as they settled only eighty-miles from the city core.  Aggressive patrolling of the rivers by the CS Navy and the forests by CS Rangers, Psi-Stalkers and Dog Packs has managed to keep the incursions outside the core to a minimum

In addition to the firebase at the super nexus point the CS also maintains the Old Chicago Naval Station on the shores of Lake Michigan near what was once Glencoe and its main military base in the area, Fort Resilience, on the former site of O’Hare International Airport.  Apart from the CS facilities there is very little in the way of civilization in the area.  The next closet Coalition city is Chi-Town some eighty-miles southwest, although there are a few small CS towns, villages and army outposts between Old Chicago and Chi-Town but even these stop twenty miles from the Old City at the CS Outpost at Bolingbrook.

Across the old state border, in Indiana, there is the independent town of Hammond.  The town is a small port and a haven for mercenaries, pirates and other Great Lakes misanthropes.  The CS Navy has considered taking it by force on numerous occasions buts its proximity to the Magic Zone makes the proposition of defending the area unpalatable.  Instead they attempt to blockade ships from entering and exiting the small port through patrols and search and seizure missions.  The Coalition States Intelligence Division (CSID) also uses Hammond as a source of intelligence on what is happening in the Magic Zone and the Great Lakes Region, much like Free Quebec does with Old Bones.

The rest of the area is a mix of forest, marshland, and rubble.  Inside the ruins of Old Chicago many of the streets and roads have been cracked and heaved by the combat and turmoil over the years and are impassable.  Buildings still stand but venturing inside of them is a risky affair due to their instability and unknown occupants.  In order to avoid detection many creatures and interlopers will hole up inside partially destroyed structures within the ruins.

A few of the canals and rivers have been cleared by the CS Navy, the De Plaines River, is kept clear and patrolled by navy boats on a regular basis and much CS merchant traffic flows through here to the CS States in the south.  The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal is also kept clear and patrolled by the Navy but mainly they treat it like a defensive barrier, attempting to prevent agents of the Federation of Magic from crossing over the canal and into the ruins.

These two rivers are part of the CS defensive strategy for the area, anything already in the ruins is not to pass over the river into the CS territory or the Magic Zone and nothing is to pass over the river and into the ruins.  The only bridge over either river is connected directly to the front gate of Fort Resilience and it is purposely designed to be collapsed in the event the ruins are overrun by creatures from the Rifts.