What Makes Chicago So Great?

In My Humble Opinion
81

That is basically what I am talking about. Chicago is a good city but it is so over-hyped by its proponents that it makes many new visitors like me feel very disappointed. I have never seen so many people that faithfully defend and promote a city as relentlessly as people from Chicago.

My family and I are very well-traveled (my mother tours professionally about 200 days a year and frequently hits the Chicago area and my wife travels to the Chicago area several times a year. I also have some close friends from Chicago and it is their fundamentalist proclamations that made me react to this thread). We all independently came up with the WTF is up with that regarding the Chicago hype.

If you ask residents from other major cities what are the pluses and minuses, they will tend to give you a balanced view. Boston for example is the higher education capital of the world, excels in bio-tech and computer high-tech, has extensive U.S. history all over the place, and is a gateway for the rest of gorgeous New England. On the minus side, it has absurd housing prices, people that may be rude, and an unattractive native accent and the driving is terrible.

Chicago people do not tend admit strong negatives or they will cover for it even though the weather is horrific and the slums are appalling by any standard. The city also defines the word sprawl and goes for 40 - 50 miles in diameter as I understood it (you can correct me on that if I misunderstood it). I have had more than one Chicago person tell me that being on Lake Michigan is better than being on the East Coast because it is basically an ocean but you don’t have to worry about salt-water corrosion.

People here also seem to be denying that there are “Chicago-style” Italian foods in a deep dish, hearty style with pizza that can be well over 1 inch thick with one “slice” being well over what and average person can eat. That is just odd since the idea has been copied to specialty restaurants outside of Chicago and I was served a single slice of pizza by my friend, the bride at a place that she picked as a local hangout and neither myself nor anyone else I saw had any hope of finishing more than one slice. I have to give them accolades for inventing a dish that is called pizza but is not really pizza but boy was that some serious hearty chow.

There is some serious cognitive dissonance when I try to take people’s word that Chicago is a superior city to others. I criticize Boston but the weather is actually better here (:shudder:), the education institutions in Chicago can be great but they can’t match Boston collectively, Boston has some great Italian food with thin crusts, the cutting edge sectors are stronger.

I know that Chicago has some good qualities but I can’t think of anything that actually kicks ass other than skyscraper quality and that leads people like me to wonder why its citizens hype it so much.

I am still trying to keep an open mind because I love to travel, I love most places I have traveled to, and I really want to understand what other people feel. Chicago has been the biggest barrier to that I have ever experienced.

82

Ah, shag, you’re just listening to the wrong people…

There are apologists that don’t admit to any negatives here at all. The slums, where they are here, can be horrific. They’re not as prevalent as they’re made out to be.

And deep-dish pizza? Over-hyped, I agree. It’s good, but it’s definitely a food you have to be in the mood for. Give me a nice medium-thin crust Home Run, Aurelios (Hey rigs!!!) or Palermos any day of the week.

I would say honestly you may be downplaying Chicago’s role in history. Ok, we’re not Bahston, and for the record, two of my favorite cities to just walk around and soak history up in are Boston and Philadelphia. But this country has grown since the late 1700’s and let’s face it: a lot of important history related to settling this country west of the Appalachains happened right around here.

Taste in architecture is just that - taste. And subjective.

People that claim (Insert name of city here) is the greatest place in the world almost invariably either are born and raised there, transplanted there and love it, or spent some quality formative time there.

Like us.

It may not be the greatest city in the world to you, but it is to a lot of us.

I extend the offer: if you’ve been exposed to doughy deep dish, fat Chicagoans that claim Lake Michigan is superior to an ocean (it’s not, but it’s not worse either - it’s DIFFERENT) and urban sprawl, then next time you’re headed out, drop a line here. A few of us have a different city to show you.

Oh, and urban sprawl? Ever hear of a little place out west called LA? I hear they got it worse, just to name one. :wink:

83

I’ll try again, but I hope somebody who puts thoughts to paper better than me also takes on the challenge.

I’m an adopted Chicagoan, and recognize that Chicago has faults. The political corruption is institutional. Obesity is a problem. There’s no hills.

So what do I love? Somehow it’s a large city where I don’t feel intimidated. I get Chicago. People are approachable. They’ll bust your chops, but it’s in a friendly way (by and large). The city solves problems. I’m a rampant green liberal, but I respect that they changed the direction of the river. When they didn’t like where street level was, they put a new street level on top of it. The skyline is beautiful. The weather - well, cold weather doesn’t bother me. I respect a Mother Nature that makes you earn a nice day. Stuff goes on in Chicago. There are lamp shade factories next to restaurants next to a sweatshop human resources outsourcing firm (where I worked). I get that. Spending my formative years in DC, I never saw any real ‘industry’ - everything was ‘meta-jobs.’

Plus, like Lochdale said - the women are magnificent. Riding the Metra I fell in love about once a day. And my beautiful wife is from Chicago too. And I get her.

It’s kind of a WYSIWYG city.

84

This is ridiculous. How long were you in Chicago to judge the weather has horrific? Today is sunshine and 70 with a breeze off the lake. We usually have one or two heat waves in Summer and this winter was ridiculously mild with temps in the forties in January. I’ve lived her ten years, and yes, we’ve had some shitty winters, but I’d never say the weather was horrific. Besides, apparently we’re all so fat here that we don’t feel the cold.
And yes, we have slums. OK. and…is there a city in the United states that doesn’t? Give me a break.

85

Wonderful typo. I’ve lived the lady Chicago 11 years now.

It’s true; we only had one snowstorm all winter where I had to shovel.

86

Another great thing abou the city, Wacker Drive. Where eles can you circumvent the entire downtown of a city in an underground race track?

The reconstruction of it was amazing as well.

I have an outdoor parking spot so snow is always an issue for me :frowning:

87

Ain’t it grand, th??? I’m leaving in five minutes - my son is out sick from school, so I’ll be spending the afternoon home, on the deck, in the sunshine, with a good book. I loves me some Chicago weather! :smiley:

And don’t worry about him not liking Chicago so much - at least we’re “scary”, right, Shagnasty?

BOO!!! :smiley:

88

I only like it for (what to me) seems like incredibly cheap real estate. My sister and brother-i-l own a condo on Lakeshore. An equivalent waterfront condo in California in a luxury building in an area comparable to Gold Coast would be…I dunno, close to a million I assume. Yet, they picked it up for something in the 200s.

My friends that make less money than I do live in 2 bedroom apartments in reasonably nice areas of town while I live in a STUDIO (albeit a nice one) in the crappiest part of my city. If I had chosen to stay in Illinois I would probably be able to purchase property in a couple years time. Here I’ll either have to go into private practice or count on getting married and relying on a two-income family.

OTOH, I just don’t like the Midwest very much. I’ll take cramped living in the metro-Boston or the San Fran/L.A. area over Chicago-living any day. I can’t explain it-I just didn’t mesh very well with the whole scene. I’m happier living in Boston or California any day. It’s the same way I liked Montreal intellectually but I just didn’t see myself ever going back to Canada to live.

Also for a big city the people are friendlier-and more talkative. I find the Chicago accent to be over-blown. I think way more people have Boston accents than Chicagoans have Chicago accents. In my school I only knew one kid who talked like that (although it did kill my ears).

89

Anybody who is still wondering what a Chicago accent sounds like should check out Dennis Farina on “Law & Order”. It’s usually strongest in people from the south side, but almost anyone from the metropolitan area can do a good impression for you. I think it’s something in the (Lake Michigan) water.

90

Funny I should happen on this thread…I’m listening to SufJan Stevens’ “…Illinoise” as I type.

My job requires a decent amount of domestic travel, and I’m a “homer”, so those two points have been made.

I live about 20 miles outside of “The City”. I lived therefrom birth to age 8, and then again from 22-31.

Weather: Yes, it can be bad at times, but I really think it’s overplayed…I second the comment that this last winter was pathetic…shovelled twice, and I don’t think it ever got under 0F, did it? What I like best are those two weeks (one in June, one in September) when I can not conceive of a better weather/scenery combo than playing Frisbee on one of the parks on the Lake with my dog. The weather simply does not get better.

Accent: Um…I don’t really hear it too often. I identify it with a more South Side accent…of course, I coudl be inured to it by now. I have been told I have it when I’m out at a client in the South, but for me that falls into pot/kettle semantics.

I love the architecture as well. I love our (limited by Eastern standards) history, too. It’s a city that sees something it wants, moves quickly, and personifies the “quit whining and do it” Medwestern work ethic combined with the urge to completion of a large city. “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission” would be a good city motto (maybe a Daley family motto, too?).

I love that the city has everything. I hav the attentionspan of a gnat, and I can still find something new every day of the year, every year of my life.

I love the nieghborhoods. I can go get freshly-made pierogies one day, follow themwith kolackys, and then get authentic Peruvian cevice the next day. Ethiopian flatbread, the best Thai on the planet (Arun’s), you name it.

People are friendly. I think it was BusGuy that mentioned the sightseers outside of Union Station, fresh from their trains. They rubberneck to see the Sears Tower, and invariably stay rooted to the spot, commenting on the visible sway at the top. The crowds always vreak aroudn them, never a stray elbow to be seen. If a tourist looks confused (universal sign…looking at a map), there will be three people offering directions within 5 minutes.

There are 3 citires I like. SanFran, NYC and Chicago. I get a intensity vibe from Chicago that I get in NYC, but it has a touch of pleasantness. I get the outdoor vibe fromSanFran, without that horible hippy-thing.

There’s little pretension.

I love the City, and Arlington Heights ain’t 1/2 bad either!

-Cem

91

Anybody who is still wondering what a Chicago accent sounds like should check out Dennis Farina on “Law & Order”. It’s usually strongest in people from the south side, but almost anyone from the metropolitan area can do a good impression for you. I think it’s something in the (Lake Michigan) water.

92

You know, Toledo has its high points as well.

The Toledo Zoo (nice zoo, also some nifty WPA architecture)
The Art Museum (the glass barons were big in art collecting)
Tony Packo’s (yummmmmmm)

Let’s not be dissful, as my mother would say.

(–is not, and never has been, from Toledo)

93

And then, there is the most important issue—

There is only one True Faith! And the sole tenent of that Faith is this—
***Next year—

THE CUBS WILL TAKE THE WORLD SERIES!!***

So it is Written! So mote it be!

Hail Cubbies.

94

I’m relieved to read so many raves about Chicago - I’ll be attending UChicago starting this fall, and I’ve been a bit nervous about moving there. Can’t wait to gorge on pizza and hot dogs! Definitely not happy at the thought of my first Chicago winter, though. I lived near Chicago when I was little and my only memory of the city is literally being blown off my feet. But I’ve decided that if I eat enough hot dogs, they’ll work as a sort of internal paperweight. Think it’ll work?

95

I don’t know if anyone has yet mentioned the world-class Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera, so I will. There are also a lot of smaller, not-so-famous, but still excellent classical music organizations, such as Music of the Baroque, and Chicago Opera Theatre.

Chicago is also the home of the Joffrey Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Company.

96

Oh please. I married one of you True Believers.

According to my daughter, a Back to the Future afficianado, the cubs will have to wait for 2015, and then to beat Miami for the Series.

I think that’s being optimistic.