No, really, I *like* Chicago!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve bitched about this enough in my LiveJournal, I thought I’d leave my friends list alone for once and complain to a different audience.

I grew up in a small city in Northern California. It’s a nice enough place, if rather dull. Fortunately, it’s only an hour’s drive to San Francisco or Oakland, so interesting things were nearby. Ordinary, suburban sort of childhood.

After college, I fell into a rut. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to be. For a variety of reasons, I up and moved to Michigan, where I didn’t have a job, didn’t know anyone, and had never even been. After a year there, I was a little bored so I up and moved to Chicago.

I’ve been in Chicago for a little over two years now and I LOVE it. It is such a great city. I’m going into the Peace Corps and I don’t know where life will take me after that, but I very much hope I’ll eventually return to Chicago.

AND YET, people are constantly asking me why I live here. I mean, all the freaking time. It’s annoying to the point that I don’t even like to mention where I’m from.

“Why would you leave CALIFORNIA for ILLINOIS?”

Because Chicago is a million times more interesting than Petaluma, California, pop. 56,000? The most exciting going on there when I visited a few weeks ago was that a new movie theater opened. I swear, everyone I talked to mentioned the damn movie theater. The only things Petaluma has more of than Chicago are cows and grapevines. Exciting.

“But THE WEATHER!”

A little snow won’t hurt me. I’m happy to put up with it to live someplace exciting and fun.

Let’s not even go into housing costs. I’ll just say that the median price on a house in Sonoma County, where Petaluma is located, is over $600,000. In Chicago, I have my own little apartment that I can afford and I still have money to go out with my friends for dinner and drinks every now and then.

For god’s sake, people, if you think it’s so great, why don’t you move there? I’m just tired of defending my choice to live in an awesome city.

2

Quote Bill Hicks at them:

3

The kicker is is that it’s not even like that in the Bay Area, which has cold rainy winters and moderately warm summers. Summer in Chicago is much hotter than it is where I am from. People go to the beach for hiking, not for sunbathing, since it’s always cool and foggy at the ocean. And trust me, there are NO movie stars wandering around downtown Petaluma.

4

Unless they’re filming some movie set in the '50s there.

5

There’s a downtown Petaluma?

6

Yes! It has, uh, two streets. It’s almost as imposing as the Loop.

7

Yup, I just moved from Sunny SoCal to a very small village in the eastish midwest for a job. People act as if I moved from paradise to Ice Station Zebra without any forethought. At first I was quite upset (the move was hard for me, but I’m in a profession where you take what offers you can get, so I had some insecurity about it). At first I tried to defend my decision to every Tom, Dick and Harry about why on earth I would move to podunk from paradise.

Watching TV and film from this side of the country, it’s easy to see why people who haven’t lived in Cali would consider it paradise. After all, isn’t everyone tan, rich and sophisticated?

The realities:

SoCal two-bedroom crappy house = $610,000
Podunk five-bedroom Victorian = $60,000

SoCal average time for 22 mile commute = 45 mins; two hours if accident
Podunk = 16 minutes, no traffic (but watch out for deer!)

SoCal chances of being victim of violent crime = 11-20% (depending on race)
Podunk = no violent crime reported in last twelve years

SoCal seasons = sun, boring sun
Podunk = spectacular spring and autumn, snow for x-mas (the way it ought to be!)

SoCal “culture” = lots of yummy restaurants, good beach bodies, smattering of intellectual life, liberal (or at least pretend liberal)
Podunk = Denny’s is gourmet, not so many sun-kissed Barbies running around, and while there’s no foreign film cinemas, my neighbors are conservative but actually come over and sit on the porch with me and chat

Will I move back to city life in another three or four years? Probably, but moving from Cali was a one-way ticket since as an educator I won’t ever be able to afford to live where I might actually teach and I’m actually getting accustomed to a slower, more sane pace of life.

In sum, the impulse to defend your decision will, like mine, probably start to wear off. The grass is always greener in people’s minds and if they consider California the promised land, why haven’t they pulled up stakes and headed west?

8

I have seriously asked people that. This is actually one of my peeves, when people whine about how they hate where they live and how they’d rather live in Florida, or Fiji, or Canada, or wherever. Just freaking move there and shut up about it!

9

I’d move to Chicago in a heartbeat. I’ve visited several times and I absolutely adore that city. I could even become a Cubs fan. No Bears, though.

10

I think it’s kind of a built-in impulse for many people who live in supposedly “uncool” places. Despite the podunkians utter awe that anyone would actually move here on purpose, most people’s families have been here since 1780 without giving into the temptation to get in their wagons and head west.

I totally understand your annoyance. When feeling vulnerable I either not mention where I’m from and/or telling folks where I grew up (Napoleon Dynamite land). My knee-jerk snarliness is starting to wear off, though. And, you’re in Chicago: imagine moving to a village of 5,000!

11

We got a milder version of that treatment when we moved from Miami to Atlanta. “Why would you leave Miami???” Uh, 'cause it sucks? We have met a few former South Floridians here, though, who just nod knowingly; it’s nice to be validated every once in a while.

12

Chicago’s great, and it’s too bad that people encourage its inferiority complex by bitching about it like that. The weather can be awful, but hey, at least the ground beneath your feet is stable! :wink:

13

I am from the Chicago area, and lived in Chicago direct for a little over two years. I love the city, but sorry - the weather absolutely sucks. So, yes - I can understand your loving the city. Lots to do, great people, great theater…the list is endless. But one humid summer, and one freeze-your-ass-off winter and, well, bye-bye Chi-town.

Great place to visit in the spring and fall.

14

I’ve lived in Chicago for 18 years now and I have this to say:

:: Singing in a silly voice while doing a stupid dance ::

I love it, oh yes I love it.
It’s the best city ev-er!
Uh-huh uh-huh, whoo - hoo!

:smiley:

15

Chicago IS one of the greatest cities in the world! After moving from deep South to Chi-town nearly 17 yrs ago, each time I’d return to visit one of my great aunts in Louisiana, she’d always ask me, “sweetie, how many times have you been shot?” haha! bless her heart! I lived on the northshore and she always seemed a little bit disappointed when I’d respond, “I’ve never been shot.”

16

Both weeks of them rimshot

Good lord, besides the weather, what is there to dislike? It’s a world-class city with none of the pretentions that go with it if you ignore the politicians who trumpet how it’s a world-class city. Many of theVery best schools and museums, etc. And I hate to get mercenary here but my family all lives around Seattle and its economy (or, more importantly to schmucks like me, its job market at the BEST of times) matches my suburban area. There is no way I could economically move away from here.

Kyla, I hate to get gooey (though I’m damned good at it, thus my normal avoidance of LJ and MPSIMS) but the Peace Corps’ gain is Chicago’s loss. Please come back when you are done.

17

Oh, and why the hell have the rest of you boosters not been to ChiDopes? :mad: There’s one coming up as soon as somebody else plans it because the last one I planned collected a total of eight–EIGHT!–people, charming and delightful as they may be. I mean, for the first time I was home hours before my wife expected me!

18

Whatever, dude. Every summer and winter is like that in Nashvegas. I will concede that your winter is more extreme than ours, but our summer is worse.

As for dropzone’s comment about both weeks of spring and fall…man, it’s the fucking same here.

SCREW IT. I’m moving to Chi-town as soon as it’s fiscally viable. Theater City, here I come!

19

Plus, you can’t throw a rock in Chicago without hitting a restaurant. How great is that?
What would you hit if you threw a rock in Petaluma?

20

dropzone --we eight had a nice time, no? Next time, I hope to get my curfew extended. :smiley:

I love Chicago–even though I avail myself of its offering far too infrequently. I love the museums, the theaters and the restaurants.
AND I LOVE THE WEATHER. YES, I DO. (well, I hate the heat in the summer–but I LOVE the cold winters–winter should be cold.)