Chicago is Middle America's Big City (Paris, Manhattan: transplants, insurance, lawyers)

[Trimac20]

I just saw 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' and was thinking about John Hughes movies from the 80s set in Chicago, as well as the Blues Brothers movies, and thought that Chicago is like 'Middle America's' big city. It's not as prominent to the world, but it represents good old fashioned American values (freedom, hard working, big car, big house, family). It's kind of everything you want in a big city, but with down home Midwestern values and a comfortable familiarity. It still has sprawling suburbs with nice, old timber homes and manicured lawns and gardens. Would you agree with my observation?

[chet everett]

Not much.

Chicago was once an economic powerhouse, which huge numbers of in the TRADTIONAL manufacturing sectors, solid employment prospects for those in the skilled trades,mince balance of white collar employment.

Over the decades there has been a dramatic shift. Work that is not centered around the core financial services, law, and other professional employment is rare.

Further the shifts in age of the work force, compensation and general attitudes has sharply caused a strong tilt toward what is commonly called the "the Progressive" mindset. Even among the very well off that would generally be assumed to "conservation"'in the attitudes there is little desire to have "a big car" -- prefernce is probably first for "a short commute" and then "a luxury vehicle that is poltically acceptable".

Similarly a "big house" is seen as something likely tonne desirable only to first generation immigrants --- to be sure there is no lack of EXPENSIVE homes laden within a range of luxury features, served by high performing schools,misplaced from crime, but size is not the primary feature desired...

Even "family" is a shifting concept -- the majority of younger people living in around Chicago have almost certsinly lived somewhere else and /or had family move away for work related issues. Travel to someplace else is pretty common to "get tougher for the holidays". More or more fols in Chicago never marry, many do marry never have kids. For fos whose politics / social issues estranged them from "blood relatives" it is relatively easy to "forge friendships tonreplacemfamily"...

Freedom is also arguably not particularly a strong force in Chicago or the region as measured by the degree to which their is little support libertarian ideals including things like concealed weapons, gay marriage, legalized marijuana.

Movies often portray a very different imagine of Chicago that reality.

[ChiGuy2.5]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I just saw 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' and was thinking about John Hughes movies from the 80s set in Chicago, as well as the Blues Brothers movies, and thought that Chicago is like 'Middle America's' big city. It's not as prominent to the world, but it represents good old fashioned American values (freedom, hard working, big car, big house, family). It's kind of everything you want in a big city, but with down home Midwestern values and a comfortable familiarity. It still has sprawling suburbs with nice, old timber homes and manicured lawns and gardens. Would you agree with my observation?

I don't agree. Chicago is not in the top 10 of most populated cities in the world, but it certainly is within the top 10 of GDP producing cities in the world. Mckinsey rated Chicago as the 5th highest GDP producing city in the world. Atlanticinsider listed Chicago as the 4th most economically powerful city in the world behind only New York, London and Tokyo. Down home midwestern values? What are those? I grew up in the suburbs and live in Chicago now. I have never once heard of anyone mentioning midwestern values. Maybe please and thank you, or holding doors open count? Don't forget that blues brothers is predominantly filmed in the suburbs, same with waynes world. The only scene I am aware of that is filmed downtown for blues brothers was the scene with Marina Towers and that one bar they got in a fight at.

Its a great city, but I just got the impression you felt like it had a "small town" feel which is not the case in my opinion.

[ToriaT]

There are many versions of Chicago. It all depends on where you are observing. There are still extended families living in the area that get together. Yes there are the families that live in other places to get together. There are the recent immigrants. 3rd and 4th generation decendants of those who came here from Europe like myself. Transplants from other cities and the suburbs. Those who still want a mc mansion in the burbs. Those that want a short commute and smaller vintage abode in the city. Poor people. Rich people. Whatever version of Chicago you want, you can find it if you look.

[thefallensrvnge]

^^I like this.

I also think Chicago is big enough to find whatever you are looking for. The "big car, big home" image wasn't obvious when I visited downtown. However, cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and New York are known for their large, dense urban cores but have enough incorporated land that usually on the outskirts you can find the suburban sprawl with big lawns, and SUVs. I still remember riding into Chicago by train. I didn't know how close the train was to the city, but there came a time when I looked out the window and the shotgun-style urban homes just never seemed to stop coming.

But I've heard Chicago called "The Great American City" before. I always like asking international tourist about their travels in America. Some think downtown Manhattan is American as you can get, while others think an open field with a red barn and windmills is so Americana. If Chicago represent the old-school American city to you, go with it; you'll find it. For me, I'm fascinated by the style of the 1920s-1930s, so every time I visit I tend to hone in on the relics of that era: art deco, jazz, the theaters and so on. Kind of fun to relive the era in a sense.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I just saw 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' and was thinking about John Hughes movies from the 80s set in Chicago, as well as the Blues Brothers movies, and thought that Chicago is like 'Middle America's' big city. It's not as prominent to the world, but it represents good old fashioned American values (freedom, hard working, big car, big house, family). It's kind of everything you want in a big city, but with down home Midwestern values and a comfortable familiarity. It still has sprawling suburbs with nice, old timber homes and manicured lawns and gardens. Would you agree with my observation?

I think it's more influential in the world than you may realize. You know how everything you buy these days has "Made in China" stamped on it?

50 years ago, everything had "Made in Chicago" stamped on it. Even today, Chicago has more manufacturing space than any other city in the U.S. - including Detroit.

In 1900, Chicago was the 5th-most-populous city in the world. In 1950, it was still the 8th-most-populous. Not bad for a city that didn't even exist in 1800. It's method of growth and structure has been a model for many other cities. It didn't necessarily invent all aspects of that, but it implemented them to great effect for the first time.

And if you think Chicago is all down home Midwestern values, you don't know much about the drug trade in the U.S. (Chicago is one of the biggest heroin marketplaces in the world and Cook County Jail has the highest rate of opiates in the system of arriving prisoners or any big-city jail in America), you haven't read much Nelson Algren (read Never Come Morning, and Chicago, City on the Make and you'll be dispossessed of seeing Chicago as built on all comfortable Midwestern families).

I'm not sure what you really mean by "comfortable familiarity." The grid system in Chicago makes it easy to learn quickly and get around with a minimum of directions or experience. The fact that it's downtown-centric may also make it more comfortable in some senses, because it gives it sense of order than cities without one strong core may lack. It's quite a bit more orderly in structure than any Latin American city or Asian city I can think of, and even more than many European or other American cities. But the order in structure doesn't mean everything is predictable or familiar.

Basically, I think that attempts to pigeon-hole Chicago miss a lot of the city. Yes, you can have a "Home, Alone" sort of life in the Chicago suburbs, or a "While You Were Sleeping" sort of experience even in the city itself. But you could also live the lives you see in "The Wire." You could meet people who live lives similar to the characters in "The Namesake" or "A Better Life." It's a city of retired factory workers, drug mules, writers, artists, traders, investment bankers, lawyers, plumbers, teachers, professors, students, professional waiters, steelworkers, assembly-line workers, tech startups, serial killers, prostitutes, addicts, priests, hindus, orthodox churches, synagogues, mosques, catholic cathedrals, buddhist temples, insurance agents, merchandisers, current ethnic neighborhoods with Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Russian Jews, Mexicans, Polish, Puerto Ricans, Ukrainian and remnants of previous immigrant neighborhoods that served Swedish, German, Norwegian, Italian, Czech, Japanese, Appalachians, people from the American Deep South, Persian, and more dispersed populations of many other ethnicities.

Chicago is, in other words, a real city, not some Disneyland of a city that serves as some sort of urban theme park for Middle America, but a real city with real problems (and, sometimes, real solutions) that attracts real people from around the world. You're right that it's not first in people's minds like New York or Paris or Tokyo. But then again, we're less than half as old as New York, and less than 1/10th as old as Paris or London or Tokyo.

[chet everett]

The manufacturing jobs in Chicago are a fading fast, and the tax structure is not the only reason. The bottomline even for retirees is that there are many places both in the region but outside the city limits as well as in whole other parts of the country where the c-o-l / cost of doing business is far more attractive...

The most notable mass manufacturing facility is almost certainly the Ford plants on the SE side of the city, which churn out quite a nice array of products with a relatively small workforce. The efforts of the city & Stste to retain that have arguably hamstrung other effforts to attract more entrepreneurial factories...

[rwocmo]

Are we talking about Chicago proper or Chicagoland? Remember, a lot of what happens in most big American cities happens in the suburbs. For many big American cities only 10-35% of the area's population lies within the city limits.

[ChiNaan]

John Hughes was from the world of affluent suburban white people, so he portrayed that in his films, and did it well. That's hardly representative of Chicagoland as a whole, though.

It's possible that "middle America" can relate to the Chicago area more easily than to NYC or L.A., but there's not exactly a shortage of successful films set in those cities.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by rwocmo

Remember, a lot of what happens in most big American cities happens in the suburbs.

You mean a lot of what happens near most big American cities happens in the suburbs.