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Old 07-29-2017, 06:07 PM
 
33 posts, read 38,365 times
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You should only be able to say your from Chicago if you live in boundries and lived in city limits for two years. I was told this by a local. I am from suburbs I always said I am from suburbs by Chicago. I have lived in Chicago six years I know can said I live in Chicago.
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Old 07-30-2017, 01:07 AM
 
2,112 posts, read 1,131,772 times
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My pet peeve is suburbanites who rip on Chicago (calling it the murder capital, hellhole, warzone, etc..) then tell people they are from Chicago.

SMH.
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Old 07-30-2017, 06:11 AM
 
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
4,616 posts, read 3,164,151 times
Reputation: 3890
How about: My home away from home?!?
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Old 07-30-2017, 10:12 AM
 
2,990 posts, read 5,242,071 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars View Post
I think the elephant in the room here, the reason why people from the suburbs might choose to keep it at "Chicago" instead of "Chicagoland" or "the Chicago area" or "near Chicago", is that there's a sort of cultural prestige in being from a large city, instead of just a suburb of it. American culture might have glamorized suburban living back in the '50s and '60s, but those days are long gone. Now cities are considered cooler, and the suburbs are where vanilla, conservative white people are supposed to live. There's increasingly little truth to this (part of the reason counties like DuPage and Lake are blue now is that they're getting more diverse), but that's still what people think.

This truncation to just the bare city name among suburnanites is especially the case among younger people, in my experience. I had a guy in one of my college classes who claimed to be "from Chicago" and when I asked where, sheepishly specified "Wheaton."

Personally? I was born and grew up in the city proper, but I don't mind it. It's not my job to police other people's language and how they express their identities. Most of us fudge aspects of our identities when presenting ourselves without even thinking about it.
True but by the same token, the nature of cities has changed immensely over the last 50 years. For instance even Brooklyn NY in the 50s/60s was considered like a suburb if you were moving there from Manhattan. My entire family grew up in a major city that is very romanticized these days and, back in the 50s/60s, in the part they lived and probably 80% of the whole city, it was virtually identical to growing up in a middle-class/blue collar suburb today. (Well, maybe not today, because the culture has changed so much, but say in the 80s.)

There weren't doo-wop groups on the corner and exciting ethnic restaurants on every block. There wasn't "world-class shopping" a stone's throw away. There was virtually no crime in most of these neighborhoods.

People went to work and came home and cooked dinner and went to church and maybe went out to eat three times a year to celebrate a birthday.
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Old 07-31-2017, 12:05 PM
 
Location: All Over
4,003 posts, read 6,059,651 times
Reputation: 3162
Quote:
Originally Posted by s0nginmyheart View Post
What do you think the boundaries are for claiming you are "from" Chicago? City proper? Or should they be saying Chicagoland if they're from some far out suburb/exurb?

I don't see a huge problem if someone from Evanston, Lincolnwood, Park Ridge, Niles, Skokie etc. claim Chicago. But there have been some tv programs I've watched where people from Crystal Lake or Naperville say they are from Chicago. A bit of raised eyebrow there, but not being native to IL, I just wonder if it's even a big deal...
I personally don't waste my time worrying about where other people claim they are from but if were going to get into this if your not within Chicago City limits then your not from Chicago, imho someoen from evanston is no more a Chicagoan than someone from Dekalb technically speaking.
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Old 07-31-2017, 01:16 PM
 
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
4,616 posts, read 3,164,151 times
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s0nginmyheart, I agree with your analysis( and I personally find it refreshing, because as a Milwaukeean, that is exactly how I feel, and that is how I would put them in Milwaukee standards. Example: I would only accept a person claiming to be a Milwaukeean if their town/village/city touches the City of Milwaukee's borders).
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Old 07-31-2017, 01:26 PM
 
Location: West Seattle
6,325 posts, read 4,862,875 times
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I should say, although I'm not gonna call people out for saying they're from Chicago if they're at least from somewhere in the extremely loosely-defined Chicago area, I would personally only do it if I were at least from some inner suburb.

Not necessarily literally touching the city itself, just a fairly dense suburb that's at least somewhat close to the city and could pass for some neighborhood of it. Berwyn, Skokie, Bellwood, Hammond, even Elmhurst - fine. Schaumburg, Woodstock, Naperville, Oswego, Frankfort - don't think so.
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Old 07-31-2017, 01:32 PM
 
Location: All Over
4,003 posts, read 6,059,651 times
Reputation: 3162
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars View Post
I should say, although I'm not gonna call people out for saying they're from Chicago if they're at least from somewhere in the extremely loosely-defined Chicago area, I would personally only do it if I were at least from some inner suburb.

Not necessarily literally touching the city itself, just a fairly dense suburb that's at least somewhat close to the city and could pass for some neighborhood of it. Berwyn, Skokie, Bellwood, Hammond, even Elmhurst - fine. Schaumburg, Woodstock, Naperville, Oswego, Frankfort - don't think so.
So let me start by saying this whole vetting who's "allowed" to say they are from Chicago is very subjective and really pretty pointless but that said I think we could look at it in terms of geography as well as feel. For example I'd have to look at a map but McKinley Park isn't technically Chicago but is pretty close and has the southside feel to it of Beverly/Mt Greenwood. Oak Lawn abuts Chicago but imho has more of a suburban feel so which is allowed to Claim Chicago?

Elmhurst to me isn't the city and isn't even close yet something like Forest Park for example is close but also has the urban feel to it. I could go from a block in Forest Park and then step into Chicago and it seems seemless where as stepping from Oak Lawn into the city are two completely different feels.

Then we could get into the whole thing of who's more entitled to call themselves a Chicagoan? Say I grew up on the south side spent 40 years in Chicago and then move out to Oswego or something like that, then you have some college grad who just moved here from Grand Rapids who's lived in Lincoln Park for the past 6 months and now he's more of a Chicagan than me?

Just seems very subjective and kind of pointless. If someone from Boise Idaho wants to claim Chicago it doesn't affect me one way or the other.
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Old 08-01-2017, 12:42 AM
 
Location: Chicago
3,569 posts, read 7,160,103 times
Reputation: 2637
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slats Grobnick View Post
My pet peeve is suburbanites who rip on Chicago (calling it the murder capital, hellhole, warzone, etc..) then tell people they are from Chicago.

SMH.
And my pet peeve is out of towners that move to Chicago as adults and claim to be Chicagoans when people who were raised here finally get to move out to the suburbs and be called suburbanites by the people who MOVED to Chicago and were not RAISED there.
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Old 08-02-2017, 01:57 PM
 
Location: Bridgeport, Chicago
150 posts, read 292,549 times
Reputation: 274
My wife grew up her whole life in Oak Park literally a block from the border with the city. When discussing with people from the area she proudly says she's from Oak Park. But when she's asked by someone not from this area or while traveling she just says she's from Chicago. I think that's pretty dang reasonable. Also of course now she lives in and owns a home in the city.

Oak Park is a place with a unique identity though and she is and should be proud to represent. On the contrary, if anyone would have a problem with her saying she's 'from Chicago' they'd be dead wrong because that girl is as lifelong Chicagoan as it gets really. Its a strange contradiction being from one of these border villages.. it's really the city but yet it isn't
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