Chicago hosting the olympics (Washington, Washington Park: fit in, best cities, hotels)

[StuyTownRefugee]

Originally Posted by via chicago

The thing is Chicago already has an established transportation network, so its not like we would need to start from scratch like many cities. Ideally we get the existing track brought up to date (which is already underway on some lines), and then keep our fingers crossed for the long desired Circle line (and potentially STAR line for Metra). Some sort of North-South/lakefront line connecting downtown to areas such as McCormick place, the southside, etc (potentially in the LSD median?) would be the ultimate. But i think thats unlikely.

Turin had one but got all spiffed up with a new one for the games, it's Italy's Detroit what used to be Detroit, but auto and transport is still centered there for Italy and for much of the EU.

Something that New York needs to do to get its train system upgraded to contemporary levels, it's deplorably old timey, new cars are 30 years old on many lines but some lines are getting new electronic cars, but not many, but the system overall much be upgraded to something more modern. New York has lines dug like the 2nd Ave badly need track but has an opening date of 2012. The Lexington East Side line 4,5, 6 is like sardines most of the time. For a city that claims to have so much money they certainly dont' spend it on its public.


I wish you all the best for Chicago to get the games, but it seems like United is already geared for it. Maybe they know something.

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by StuyTownRefugee

I wish you all the best for Chicago to get the games, but it seems like United is already geared for it. Maybe they know something.

Nobody knows anything until 2009. But corporate financial backing is a huge part of Chicago's strategy (the bid committe head is Pat Ryan, who is the bazillionaire executive chairman of Chicago based Aon corporation). getting support of the local business community will play a large roll towards financing this thing.

[LM1]

Chicago has always had a reputation as a "hard town" - part deserved, part overly-romanticized, but all of it portrayed in movies and on TV to varying degrees of accuracy.

Yes, it goes back to prohibition and the "American Gangster" archetype which occurred right around the same time as the great "Northern Migration".

Then, the dramatic reduction of quality of life- mainly in the southern portions of the city proper- after the white flight of the 50's and early 60's...

Then, the racial tensions of the mid to late 1960s, plus the grime and grit image of Chicago's inner-city industry.

Lets not forget the mythical "Chicago housing projects" era of the 70's and 80's- the Urban Decay years- that entered the national stream of consciousness via TV and movies... When a kid in Nebraska knew what the words "Cabrini Green" meant and when people outside of the city thought of Chicago, Esther Rolle immediately popped into their minds...

Now, the Chicago renaissance and city-wide gentrification with its occasional, unfortunate "ethnic comminglings' that occur whenever some delusionally idealistic 22 year old 'urban-pioneer' decides to leave their new "up and coming area" condo after dark.

A lot of Chicago's dirty laundry has been part of the pop-culture scene for a long, long time- from Capone to Good Times, and yes, the world took it literally, even though a lot of it was hyperbole.

[DC's Finest]

Via,

Let me apologize for saying that your post didn't make any sense. I didn't agree with the comments about Atlanta in the last paragraph.

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by DC's Finest

Via,

Let me apologize for saying that your post didn't make any sense. I didn't agree with the comments about Atlanta in the last paragraph.

Im not trying to say Atlanta dosent hold importance, because it does, and moreso as of late. But compared to other "global" cities, I dont think its arrived yet.

Alpha world cities / full service world cities[6]

• 12 points: London, New York City, Paris, Tokyo
• 10 points: Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, Singapore

Beta world cities / major world cities

• 9 points: San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, Zürich
• 8 points: Brussels, Madrid, Mexico City, São Paulo
• 7 points: Moscow, Seoul

Gamma world cities / minor world cities

• 6 points: Amsterdam, Boston, Caracas, Dallas, Düsseldorf, Geneva, Houston, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Osaka, Prague, Santiago, Taipei, Washington, D.C.
• 5 points: Bangkok, Beijing, Montreal, Rome, Stockholm, Warsaw
• 4 points: Atlanta, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Miami, Minneapolis, Munich, Shanghai

Evidence of world city formation
Strong evidence

• 3 points: Athens, Auckland, Dublin, Helsinki, Luxembourg, Lyon, Mumbai, New Delhi, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, Tel Aviv, Vienna

Some evidence

• 2 points: Abu Dhabi, Almaty, Birmingham (UK), Bogotá, Bratislava, Brisbane, Bucharest, Cairo, Cleveland, Cologne, Detroit, Dubai, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Lima, Lisbon, Manchester, Montevideo, Oslo, Riyadh, Rotterdam, Seattle, Stuttgart, The Hague, Vancouver

Minimal evidence

• 1 point: Adelaide, Antwerp, Aarhus, Baltimore, Bangalore, Bologna, Brasília, Calgary, Cape Town, Colombo, Columbus, Dresden, Edinburgh, Genoa, Glasgow, Gothenburg, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Kansas City, Leeds, Lille, Marseille, Richmond, St. Petersburg, Tashkent, Tehran, Tijuana, Turin, Utrecht, Wellington

[Lookout Kid]

That's a very interesting rating system that I hadn't seen before I discovered this forum. If you look at today's Crain's, there is an article breaking down the direction of the local economy here. It says that Chicago's overall job growth is slow, but that skilled positions in business services and finance are booming here at a rate faster than any other midwestern city. Here's a quote:


Finance and business services combined now represent one-fifth of the region's production and nearly one in seven jobs, each up by roughly half since the mid-1980s.

Such figures "help verify Chicago's ascendancy toward higher-order occupations," says William Testa, senior economist and director of regional programs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. "This is Chicago's successful transformation."

The bad news is that other sectors — not only manufacturing, but the transporting, warehousing and distribution of goods — have suffered major marketshare losses to other, cheaper locales. And some of the sectors that are producing jobs, like Ms. Harris' health care industry, often pay poorly.

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/a...ticle_id=28996

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The bad news is that other sectors — not only manufacturing, but the transporting, warehousing and distribution of goods — have suffered major marketshare losses to other, cheaper locales. And some of the sectors that are producing jobs, like Ms. Harris' health care industry, often pay poorly.

No real surprise there..thats all going out to new sprawling distribution centers in the exburbs.

Thats unfortunate to hear about the decline of solid middle class jobs, but thats really not just Chicago..its what the entire country is going through

[DC's Finest]

Via,

I think I understand what you are saying but who created this world cities list? Minneapolis on par with Barcelona and over Philadelphia? Yeah right! Seatlle & Detroit on par? Are you serious? Toronto over Madrid? I would put SF above Chicago in the grand scheme of things. What is the criteria based on? You could easily put Madrid, Seoul, Moscow and Mexico City in the second tier of Alpha Cities.

[via chicago]

Its based on the GaWC Inventory of World Cities, in 1999. A revised list and criteria was released in 2004 (and while I dont agree with it, they seem to have taken your suggestion and put SanFran over Chicago):

Global Cities [7]
Well rounded global cities

1. Very large contribution: London and New York City.
   Smaller contribution and with cultural strengths: Los Angeles, Paris and San Francisco.
2. Incipient global cities: Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Toronto.

Global niche cities - specialised global contributions

1. Financial: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo.
2. Political and social: Brussels, Geneva and Washington, D.C.

World Cities
Subnet articulator cities

1. Cultural: Berlin, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Munich, Oslo, Rome, Stockholm.
   Political: Bangkok, Beijing, Vienna.
2. Social: Manila, Nairobi, Ottawa.

Worldwide leading cities

1. Primarily economic global contributions: Frankfurt, Miami,Mumbai, Munich, Osaka, Singapore, Sydney, Zurich
2. Primarily non-economic global contributions: Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Atlanta, Basel, Barcelona, Cairo, Denver, Harare, Lyon, Manila, Mexico City, New Delhi, Shanghai.

[d-iron]

Originally Posted by via chicago

Im not trying to say Atlanta dosent hold importance, because it does, and moreso as of late. But compared to other "global" cities, I dont think its arrived yet.

Alpha world cities / full service world cities[6]

• 12 points: London, New York City, Paris, Tokyo
• 10 points: Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, Singapore

Beta world cities / major world cities

• 9 points: San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, Zürich
• 8 points: Brussels, Madrid, Mexico City, São Paulo
• 7 points: Moscow, Seoul

Gamma world cities / minor world cities

• 6 points: Amsterdam, Boston, Caracas, Dallas, Düsseldorf, Geneva, Houston, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Osaka, Prague, Santiago, Taipei, Washington, D.C.
• 5 points: Bangkok, Beijing, Montreal, Rome, Stockholm, Warsaw
• 4 points: Atlanta, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Miami, Minneapolis, Munich, Shanghai

Evidence of world city formation
Strong evidence

• 3 points: Athens, Auckland, Dublin, Helsinki, Luxembourg, Lyon, Mumbai, New Delhi, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, Tel Aviv, Vienna

Some evidence

• 2 points: Abu Dhabi, Almaty, Birmingham (UK), Bogotá, Bratislava, Brisbane, Bucharest, Cairo, Cleveland, Cologne, Detroit, Dubai, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Lima, Lisbon, Manchester, Montevideo, Oslo, Riyadh, Rotterdam, Seattle, Stuttgart, The Hague, Vancouver

Minimal evidence

• 1 point: Adelaide, Antwerp, Aarhus, Baltimore, Bangalore, Bologna, Brasília, Calgary, Cape Town, Colombo, Columbus, Dresden, Edinburgh, Genoa, Glasgow, Gothenburg, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Kansas City, Leeds, Lille, Marseille, Richmond, St. Petersburg, Tashkent, Tehran, Tijuana, Turin, Utrecht, Wellington

wow look at Chicago right up there with the heavy weights