In other words…why does the city not have any town limits signs??? Is it that our fair city is just too good for them???
The yellow streetlights, man!
For years you could stand at the top of Sears Tower and see exactly where the city limits were.
When you cross Howard Street, in either direction, there are signs.
My experience is that it’s uneven. True of moving from one suburb to another, also; on some (major) roads there may be some small signs (“Now Entering Lincolnwood, Winner of the 1967 State Champion Tiddly-Winks”) but it’s inconsistent.
Instead of getting shot in the face, you get shot in the back. Big difference.
should it be welcome or welcome to an entrance of a city. example, my home town sign says “welcome San Clemente”. Should it state … Welcome" to" San Clemente. It really bugs me when i come into town. Need to know.
Chances are that the two lines are different sizes or case.
So if you read it as
Welcome!
—signed, San Clemente
it’s a perfectly fine way to phrase it.
Can you imagime how many signs would be needed if, at every street entering the city limits, a sign were to be posted. Just look at a map of the city, especially how it stretches on a narrow ribbon out to O’Hare.
I used to drive out to Melrose Park for work, coming from the near north side. I’d generally take North Avenue or Fullerton. In the winter, you could easily tell when you were leaving the city, as the snow on the road suddenly increased due to the relatively pathetic suburban snow removal methods.
Street lights as mentioned, also the street signs are different.
In real life though, after living here for a long time, you just develop a sense of where the different borders are. I can “feel” the border when I cross it.
The best way to develop this skill is to get yourself on the boot or better yet, seizure list for unpaid parking tickets. You will become acutely aware of when it’s safe to park 
Maybe there’s a guy named San Clemente who visits town a lot, and they’re just greeting him.
Okay, guess I should have clarified…how would someone not familiar with the city know??? Just like everyone else, I know that, generally, when you cross Howard north you leave town, and that for a good deal of the town Harlem is the western border, and many people use streetlight colors as the gauge, but…how about people from out of town?
I do remember years ago (circa 2004) there was a very tiny green sign that just said “CHICAGO” on Cicero not far from Midway…
Well, they wouldn’t know. And that could have consequences since Chicago has traffic ordinances (no use of handheld cell phones, no U turns) that a motorist would be expected to observe.
In general, I think there are relatively few signs marking municipal limits in Chicagoland. There are some prominent new “gateways,” but a drive out Irving Park Road probably takes you through 15 municipalities on the way to Elgin, and I bet there are only half a dozen city limits signs.
I always was told it was the green street light poles. Most suburbs have silver street light poles but Chicago has green street light poles.
I’m not sure how valid that statement is. I rarely drive into the city on surface streets.
Alas, Chicago has begun replacing its green light poles with new aluminum ones, and painting the green ones black. What’s next? CTA buses that aren’t green and white?
Bah! Next thing you know, they’ll be getting rid of those cute little round CTA tokens!
Over here, in my neighborhood on the Southwest Side, they’re all silver now. And they’re the type with the two lights on them–one higher up on the street side, and one lower down on the pedestrian/sidewalk side. They can almost be nice, but I can’t for the life of me understand why they went for the unfinished look. The silver color really bugs me. Green or black and they could look classy. Bare silver metal and they stick out like a sore thumb and loko half-finished. At least to my eyes.
It usually involves sitting in O’Hare for 4 hours.
Or you took a really wrong turn on the Tollway and you’re now at the California coast.
In New Jersey, you see signs all over the place in that faux wood to make it more homey. Then, they have some ad on the bottom to tell you who paid for it. Welcome to North Weltshead. (This sign is brought to you by courtesy of Ralph’s Gun 'n Bait). However, these are only on the major streets.
The problem is my street runs through the border of our town and the town next door. This has lead to the interesting problem where there’s a house a block and a half from me on my street that shares my street address. His house is in one town, and I’m in the other. We get each other’s UPS and FedEx packages all the time.
The worst happened when I was getting a new roof. The guy who was suppose to be replacing the gutter went to the wrong house and started to tear down the gutter of the other house. When I was driving by, I saw two police cars, the contractors, and the people who owned the house all in the front, and I figured it must have something to do with me. Fortunately, I was able to explain the whole thing, and the gutter man gave the neighbors new gutters too.
I asked both towns to put up signs on the border with the hopes that if someone knows where the border is, they know they’re suppose to be in one house or the other. Both towns are willing if I want to fork over the $300 to “sponsor” a sign.