Indiana Dunes National Park is less than an hour away! Don't get me wrong, I wish the region had mountains, but Indiana Dunes has both great forest trails and giant sand dunes you can climb to get a great view of Lake Michigan.
You can do a similar trip to Zion up north which is even easier from the Northside. You can be sleeping in a hammock walking distance to the water in either direction pretty trivially.
I’m less familiar with the western suburbs version but have friends that do starved rock this way.
I don’t think it invalidates your point and the time it takes to get to somewhere “outdoors” is actually my biggest complaint about the area but both of those parks are definitely doable after work… so long as you stay the night.
Here is a link to a group that does those trips as tours and does advocacy: https://www.oofd.org/