Typical Chicago Attitude?

[DetroitPlanner]

15 - 20 years ago Chicago's River North area was literally mostly parking lots and the Halstead Corridors N of DePaul and around Greektown were sketchy at best.

12 years ago if you walked the wrong way from Rush and Division, you were in big trouble, today it is much more safer. State Street at one time looked very similar to Woodward, with lots of vacancys that would increase as you got firther away from the Palmer House or Marshal Fields.

None of the streets had boulevards in them either, it was a very grey city with serious issues that they have overcome.

We have very good reasons to be jelous of Chicago. They have come a long way. Not everything built is perfect, but when you look at additions to the Shedd, some of the features of Melineum Park, they add to the City just like Campus Martius adds to Detroit.

[ccbatson]

Visit Florida with the NY snowbirds and retirees before concluding that NYers are not arrogant.

[detmich]

Visit Florida with the NY snowbirds and retirees before concluding that NYers are not arrogant.

Florida snow birds live in NY state, not NY city. Very big difference. No one compares the populace of Michigan to the populace of Detroit. Only reversed on who is nice and who isn't [[just joking!)

[ccbatson]

Have you been there? A huge number of former New Yorkers [[the city) in Southern Florida.

[detmich]

Have you been there? A huge number of former New Yorkers [[the city) in Southern Florida.

No, I don't have a passport.

[ccbatson]

Meaning? Too many immigrants for your taste?

[Detroitej72]

At least they aren't as arrogant as New Yorkers....yet.

Thats pretty much been my experience as well. New Yorkers seem to feel the world revolves around them.

The only thing worse than a NYer is someone who is not even from there, but defends them as if they are supieror to all us other less worhty folks.

[reddog289]

Guess I will have to bite the bullet and visit Chicago and my relatives there, Take the "wife" on the trip I promised her, and come back with the same feelings that I have had for Chicago. Chicagoland is just a bigger version of Metro Detroit.

[reddog289]

Oh yeah ,WELCOME BACK Jjaba!!!

[detmich]

Meaning? Too many immigrants for your taste?

Just an attempt at humor.

[ccbatson]

Understood...but as humor is rooted in reality, is this the reality on which the attempt was made?

[detmich]

Understood...but as humor is rooted in reality, is this the reality on which the attempt was made?

No, Will Robinson. My attempt at humor was based on my programming. Do not venture beyond the space craft Will Robinson.

[ccbatson]

Not a bad evasion.

[detmich]

Home evasion? Those are scary.

[ccbatson]

2 strikes on the humor attempt front...don't quit the day job.

[detmich]

2 strikes on the humor attempt front...don't quit the day job.

That is my day job.

[ccbatson]

Ummmm, sorry then. Maybe vocational rehab?

[detla1]

Exactly. I'm from the Chicago and I find it embarrasing. I'm happy where I live [[Oak Park) have a good life, but running into people with the delusional attitude about Chicago, just nauseates me.

Half the city looks the same or worse than Detroit, [[black people for the most part in Chicago live in areas no nicer than Detroit) and you are right on about the architecture. In fact I think Detroits lack of building after 1970 ,might be a blessing in disguise. A filming crew can much more easily film a historical movie when an area is not cluttered up with modern stuff.

The Rencen is off on its own and does not affect the historical feel of downtown Detroit and Comerica Tower blends in very nicely.

[detla1]

They LOVE comparing themselves to other Midwestern cities simply because the alternatives -- comparing themselves to New York, San Francisco, etc -- leaves them WAY down the list.

They can do-no-wrong architecturally -- nevermind the incredibly lame Millenium Park and that tumor on the once-gorgeous Soldier Field and the miles of cookie-cutter apartment blocks and boring postmodern glass and steel office buildings

This is my first time on the forum, I meant to include your post earlier.

[Danny]

Chicago is being like Chicago. A pre-New York Cityesque metropolis with buildings that could reach the sky and neigborhoods look like ticky tacky little boxes that I don't to live in.

[detla1]

I always hear people talk up how they loved living in Chicago, usually while living here. Which begs the question, why'd they leave in the first place?

Comparing Chicago to Detroit is comparing apples to oranges. A better comparision is Chicago to New York or LA.

At least in Detroit, we have better sports teams!

No it is not. For two reasons:

I absolutely do not worship celebrities, but the lack of a celebrity/economy that includes media/entertainment. Chicago has VERY little of this. Atlanta, which is consider "less world class" by more may have more celebrities[[African American mostly)/media [[CNN) than Chicago.

Plus the regional combined metro area of Chicago is 9-10 million. LAs is around 17 million, New York about 21 million, Detroit-Ann Arbor-Windsor is about 5 million.

Chicago today can best be compared to Toronto or Houston, or maybe even Philly [[it actually gained people this census slightly, while Chicago lost 200,000.

On the west side of Lincoln Park [[one of the most fashionable neighborhoods), there is an actual working steel mill [[near Goose Island). North of there is Lakeview, the second most trendy neighborhood which revolves around an aged ballpark, where people drink old style and eat hot dogs. You mean to tell me that Chicago has more in common with LA and New York!!

Theres nothing wrong with Old style, hot dogs, and steel dogs. But this is proof that Chicago is very much part of the midwestern group of cities.

And the segregation. All cities across the country has racial tensions at one point. But the 99% black across half the city proper is much more like St. Louis, Detroit. than New York and LA.

Chicagos alright. Its cool. But the delusional thinking and propoganda really turns me off.

[Danny]

detla sez... "And the segregation. All cities across the country has racial tensions at one point. But the 99% black across half the city proper is much more like St. Louis, Detroit. than New York and LA."

Out of 99% black in half of Chicagoland Area, the rest is 36.6% Blacks did not have a ghost a of chance to take over all Chicago's EVIL wards to due what is called "Railroad Industrial Track Demarcation!" and Real Estate blockbusting plots in the 1950s and 60s."

[detla1]

Look, I love Detroit and wouldn't be on this board if i didn't. My family is still in the area and i visit often.

But....Chicago, in and around which i have lived for 28 years, has, in fact, evolved into a unique and magnificent city. There is nothing comparable.

Take the relatively small part of the metropolitan area from Wrigley Field to Comiskey Park [[yeah, we don't call it US Cellular Field) N to S and from the lake to about Ashland Avenue E to W. In that urban strip you have the best theatre in America [[Steppenwolf [run by an ex-Detroiter], Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare, et al.), some of the best restaurants [[Charlie Trotter's, Alinea, Tru, Obama favorite Spiaggia, Topolobampo, etc.), all major league sports [[including AL and NL), a free zoo, a public golf course, storied rock + jazz + blues + ethnic music clubs, Chinatown, Bronzeville, Greektown and other vibrant ethnic enclaves, numerous museums [[not just the Art Institute and the Field Musuem of Nat'l History, but also museums dedicated to Judaica, modern art, photgraphy, Greek history, Mexican art, etc), the recreational possibilities of Lincoln and Grant Parks [[swimming, boating, fishing, running, baseball and softball, rowing, soccer, cycling), campuses of several universities including many of Northwestern's and U Chicago's graduate schools, great shopping [[including 6 department stores from Sears to Neiman Marcus and tons of smaller boutiques), public and private libraries.......and 2 train lines and countless bus routes running through it, making it all accessible to anyone w/o a car.

For comparison's sake [[and I do so only because someone above mentioned NYC and San Francisco, 2other cities I love), New York may have more to do, but it's not nearly as accessible and affordable as in Chicago and similar attractions are far more spread out. San Fran and Boston are wonderful, but far smaller and less diverse [[and more expensive).

The acknowledgement of what Chicago has to offer doesn't have to be a knock on any place else, especially a city like Detroit with such an outsized cultural legacy recognized worldwide. But it's equally true there's no place else like Chicago in the midwest because there's never been any place else where so many choices are so available to so many people.

I think Motown is far a more fun style of music. Nothing compares, and Chicago had nothing that can match Motowns success in the 60s. Detroit is as important of a music city as much as New Orleans, Memphis, or Liverpool, England [[Beatles).

Detroit has a comparable Greektown. Chicagos Greektown is Halstead.

New York has FAR more to do. There are 5 boroughs, and the city as a whole is over twice and densely populated, where the subway is basically a web. There is only transfering to buses in the outer burroughs. San Fran and Boston are part of larger combined metro areas that have a total economic output that comes VERY close to Chicago.

The only reason why San Fran and Boston are "'less diverse" is because those cities have huge white collared, highly educated opportunities, making the cities more expensive, at the same time having fewer blue collared opportunities than Chicago, thus leading to fewer working class, insular immgrant enclaves than Chicago. I don't see why thats bad. Its simply very trendy for people to put some much focus on immigrant neighborhoods. [[litte this, that village) Did you know that the term ghetto originally referred to immigrant enclaves. The decayed areas of Detroit are technically not "ghetto" in the classic definition. They are simply returning back to a natural state.

Chicagos cool like I said, but its simply stands out in having a dazzling, shiny downtown and lakefront, and [[the north side) it is an opportunity for midwesterners to live a lifestyle close to what they think New Yorkers live like, without leaving the midwest.

I personally am very impressed with Midtown Detroit. It feels like all the museums of the cultural district are an extension of Wayne State.

Up to around 1970, Chicago was nothing more than one and a half to twice as big as Detroit.

[detla1]

15 - 20 years ago Chicago's River North area was literally mostly parking lots and the Halstead Corridors N of DePaul and around Greektown were sketchy at best.

12 years ago if you walked the wrong way from Rush and Division, you were in big trouble, today it is much more safer. State Street at one time looked very similar to Woodward, with lots of vacancys that would increase as you got firther away from the Palmer House or Marshal Fields.

None of the streets had boulevards in them either, it was a very grey city with serious issues that they have overcome.

We have very good reasons to be jelous of Chicago. They have come a long way. Not everything built is perfect, but when you look at additions to the Shedd, some of the features of Melineum Park, they add to the City just like Campus Martius adds to Detroit.

Exactly, and thats the point. I think its great what Chicago has become. But to think that Chicago is so unique that this success was becomes of something so intrinsic and visionary of all the citizenry is absolutely BS. Its just that Chicago is bigger, more economically diversified [[not something that you can plan as people seem to think, its more organic than that), and that you have a strong arm mayor that can crush community opposition to any plans.


What Chicago has become is great. But to think that other Detroit or other midwestern cities will forever be stuck looking back at their glory days, is absolute garbage. All cities have their assets and their potential.

[Danny]

Chicago went to heavy gentrication in the late 1980s after the first female Mayor Jane Byne spent 3 nights at a drug emporium called Cabrini-Green Apts. It spread up faster than the South Bronx, NYC, New York. Daley finished the job by sweeping the po'folks and gangbangers out of Downtown Chicago developing areas causing its population to increase up to 2.8 Million that's something that Detroit should have done. But Mayor Coleman Young's Black Detroit Dream prevented more outside [[suburban)regionalization from coming to Downtown Detroit. It's population continue to drop. Now Mayor Dave Bing has to clean the Young and Kilpatrick's mess until the end. Then we will see Detroit real rennaisance by 2020 to 2050.

Chicago's massive urban acres and its population grew very fast thanks to Mercantilism and midwestern farm trades. Detroit should do the same, but making stoves to cars to Motown Music is all we do.