Wow. That’s unfortunate. I know a guy – former co-worker – a white guy in his 20’s who quit to go back to grad school in Chicago. I’m not sure if he moved to any of those neighborhoods, but I’ll give you once guess at what his first name is. Here’s a hint: it isn’t “Trixie.”
Nothing I said above refers to Cubs fans, and I can certainly see how your attitudes about Chicago may have been badly influenced if your principal exposure to the city has been at Wrigley Field and the surrounding neighborhood. Cubs fandom tends to bring out the worst in people for some reason. I was living in Urbana the last time the Cubs won the division. Most fan bases are spirited and happy during a title run–or at least that’s been my experience with my reluctant immersion in Nebraska Cornhusker culture. When the Cubs get to winning, their fans get bitter, growling about how they’ll finally get revenge on the world for their century of poor fortune. Cubs fans aren’t like any other fanbase, and as a rule they aren’t like that when they’re not exposed to Cubness.
The Cubs and the climate are the major qualifiers I would put on my otherwise glowing assessment of the city. That and the aforementioned Palmer House. A stay there is a colossal waste of money for no real return–tiny, crappy rooms, incompetant service, and heaping helpings of attitude cancel out a nice lobby. I will reiterate that base cost-of-living really cannot compare with San Francisco or New York. The upper reaches of Chicago living may well skew the statistics compiled in the post above, but I’d view these as elective. In SF or NY, you’re gonna pay through the nose whether you like it or not. I think you can get by reasonably in or around Chicago, but I’ll leave that to the experts who actually live there.
I guess I didn’t check the top three on that cite, expecting San Francisco and New York to run #1 and #2. The median sales price for existing single-family homes in Chicago in 2009 was $199K. In San Francisco? $493K. Hell, Seattle was even significantly more expensive by that metric, $306K. San Jose is $530K. San Diego? $359K. DC? $308K.
Cite.
I mean that’s just one metric out of many, but it’s a big metric. Sure, gas is more expensive here and taxes are generally higher (although I think property tax in the city is pretty reasonable), but costs like food and housing are comparably cheap. And $2.5K average rent for a 2-bedroom in Chicago? No way. An “average” one bedroom runs between $800-$1000, from what I’ve seen, but you can find one bedrooms in the $600 range (possibly lower) if you don’t mind living in less popular neighborhoods on the southwest side. Two bedrooms should average in the $1500 or so range.
I spent my formative years in Uptown, Chicago. We lived on Kenmore. I attended McCutcheon, Arai and Greeley. I saw E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Riviera. When I was 13, my mother moved the family to Alabama, and I’ve never stopped looking back. I have seen nothing to match Chicago for fascinating buildings, streets, neighborhoods. Certainly, nowhere else do they seem to know how to make pizza, and in most of the country you can’t even find italian beef. Or fish-n-chips that aren’t made with some kind of tempura batter.
Uptown, you may know, is something of a museum of Jazz-age Chicago. It features the Uptown Theater and the Aragon Balroom. The architecture in style when the neighborhood was in blooming featured a lot of terra cotta, not only because in general it was favored after the fire, but particularly in that period it had become more readily available, with a manufacturer having been established nearby. There are a number of marvelous examples to be found.
I’m a NYer and grew up in Michigan. I have some knee-jerky hostility towards Chicago from both of these environments…but it’s not a big deal. I have no interest in seeing it, but I can a) understand why people would want to, and b) will probably end up seeing more than just the airport because my SO really wants to and I can’t imagine being bored with him.
Don’t care. Nothing against Chicago, it’s just that I don’t like the Straight Dope being tied to it; sometimes I accidentally click on a thread on one of the Chicago or Barn House forums and want to kick myself for helping it get out of double digit page views.
Haven’t been there and only have one reason to want to visit: the Ukrainian Village. I mean, I’m Ukrainian, I know a bunch of Ukrainians, but all in the ‘old immigrant farmer’ sense. An urban centre would be cool to visit.
I was there as a kid, but it doesn’t really count. Anyway, it’s on the short list The Other Shoe and I have for future travel destinations. No international flights and a huge number of fancy-pants chefs opening up fabulous restaurants. We would go on an Eating Trip.
We went to see a Cubs game at Wrigley Field - everything people have said about the experience is true, to me, but we loved it - the heckling had storylines and character development, for heaven’s sake. 
(Being told our Alberta driver’s licenses weren’t a “real” driver’s license, and having a huge hassle just trying to buy some cheap, shitty beer was less cool.)
You need to follow the link in the HuffPo report to get the whole deal for the cite. HuffPo only mentioned housing. From the people who did the study:
They claim this is the world’s most comprehensive cost of living survey. If you have issue with their methodology take it up with them.
While we can quibble on whether San Francisco is more expensive than Chicago I think it is safe to say Chicago is not exactly a cheap US city to live in as was suggested earlier.
I’ve always took that survey with a huge grain of salt. Bratislava is more expensive than Dublin and Prague, which is more expensive than Frankfurt? Are you fucking kidding me? And while Moscow often shows up at the tops of lists on these, I haven’t the faintest clue of how or why. I’ve been to all these places. I know people who live in all these places. I don’t know what kind of metric they use, because there ain’t no way in hell it costs more to live in Bratislava than Frankfurt or that Moscow is more expensive than New York. Maybe if you only hang out in the high-end places (where it can be ungodly expensive), but for your average lifestyle, no.
I dunno…maybe they also figure in an average wage.
So, while Bratislava may be cheap to a New Yorker who has an average salary of $30k (or whatever it is) living in Bratislava may be more expensive to the people who live there and the average wage is $10k (or whatever).
Just guessing. They claim they are used by companies to figure out compensation for expats so I presume they have something going for them.
This survey on the other hand, has Moscow the 44th most expensive out of 73 cities.
Note what it says about the Mercer Index:
Back when I was in the travel biz, there used to be a flight at 6:00am from MSP to O’Hare that continued on to St. Martin. It was a charter flight that was always empty out of MSP, and travel agents flew for free. The return flight left O’Hare about 10:00pm.
So…a number of us agents would hop on down to Chicago for a day, catch a Cubs game, or try a new restaurant, maybe go to the Shedd Aquarium–whatever, and then come back that night.
I like Chicago a lot.
Does living in the burbs count as living in chicago?
Never been there, but I dont like big cities. I went to Boston last year for Harvard Model Congress and I’ll be going back this year, and I just didnt like the big city feel. That being said, I havent been to many big cities.
Visited bits… haven’t been there long enough to have an informed opinion… loved it anyway. But then I loved pretty much everywhere I went in the US… perhaps not Des Moines so much…
Depends.
If you live in the burbs and travel to New York (or somewhere a bit distant) then you say you live in Chicago. If you are in Chicago then you say you are from whatever suburb.
I grew up in the burbs and unless I was around Chicago itself I’d just say I was from Chicago.
Now, as a person who lives in the city itself and have for years if I hear someone say they are from Chicago I check to see if they mean the burbs.
Chicagoans are not overly fond of suburbanites. It is not outright hostility but a Chicagoan loathes hanging out at in the areas suburbanites like to frequent (in particular Rush St.). Cubs games suck because they are overwhelmed by suburbanites who come in and act like jack asses.
A Chicagoan will know many of the much better neighborhood spots to frequent and stick to those.
Chicago is not so great as a tourist destination for this reason. It is not bad and it is a major city with world class museums and such but to get the best of it you really can do with a local to show you around. Other cities cater to the tourist better than Chicago does I think (which again is not to say it is bad for a tourist).
Let me be more specific. For the purposes of this poll. should I say I did or didn’t live in Chicago?
For the purposes of this thread and my contributions, yes. I’ve pretty much always only lived in the city when I’ve been in the area (except for five years up in Evanston–otherwise, I’m a Southwest Side kid, born Back of the Yards, raised in Archer Heights) but I have no problem with suburbanites calling themselves “Chicagoans” in any context but a local one. Not that I have a problem with labeling yourself a Chicagoan locally, it’s just that it’s not terribly descriptive.
Yes, there is somewhat of a playful tension between Chicagoans and suburbanites, kind of in the big-brother teasing their little brother mode, with Chicagoans being the big brother, of course. When Chicagoland (yes, that’s our term for the Chicago metro area) split from one area code (312) into two (312 for the city proper and 708 for the suburbs) back in the late 80s, some entrepreneurial type printed up tee-shirts with the slogan “No 708ers” on it to play this up. It’s no different–and I feel it’s taken much less seriously–than the New York vs New Jersey “rivalry.” I remember once (or twice)making a comment on these boards something about calling Hoboken a New York City neighborhood and being stiffly reminded that it was in New Jersey, as if I fucking didn’t realize I crossed took the PATH and crossed the Hudson to get there. If somebody called Oak Park a “Chicago neighborhood” I wouldn’t give two shits. For the purposes of a Chicago visitor, it may as well be Chicago proper.