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And I guess: I AM THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO FEELS THAT WAY. So, I concede and wish you all the best this coming year!
TootsieWootsie - actually, what I want to know is why you continue to assert over and over that nobody is willing to talk about Chicago's faults when people like me have actually started threads on them because I want meaningful discussion on what can be done to improve things.
(or because I felt like kvetching about Daley ... and who doesn't these days)
I was RAISED in Illinois, started my career in Chicago, transferred later to Texas. I consider myself 1st, last and always a Chicagoan before anything else. I lived there a few years ago, and had to move due to a family emergency with an elderly parent, but am still driving distance from Chicago now. All my relatives live innercity Chicago. This is not someone who is from "outside of the city" and with no knowledge of Chicago.
However, even when living innercity in the Gold Coast, I still felt that the city was not safe, dirty for the most part and gray one too many days.
And I guess: I AM THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO FEELS THAT WAY. So, I concede and wish you all the best this coming year!
Now, now.
Trust me Toostie, you aren't THE ONLY ONE that is from Chicago and doesn't want to live there. I know others who have said similiar, most of them usually of elderly age, but they do exist.
For someone who's lived in a place where it's sunny all the time, it's over-rated for me. I actually like a good gray day here and there. Makes me really appreciate when that sun comes out. Ya, call me crazy. Plus, Las Vegas sun is unbelievably glaring! Even the desert rocks and sand seem to reflect the sun so it's blinding no matter where you go in the mornings and afternoons.
As for dirty, I believe Chicago was much much dirtier 15 years ago or so. Since then, they really cleaned up their act and is quite impressive now. I know many that have commented how clean it is overal. True there are always ghettos and slums. My friend lives in a ghetto area and her neighbor house used to be a meth house, now boarded up with trash all in the frontcourtyard. She still loves the neighborhood. Plans to change the community. Says it has such potential!!!. Gotta love her...Now, that's a positve attitude for ya!
Nah, you aren't the only one, but if you read this thread thoroughly, I think everyone has been understanding to your opinion, but politely have expressed their own. [i]Expect for Steve-O, who is always up for a good poke and comeback[i] (just kidding steve )
Which is why I like my fellow Chicagoans and their threads. Understanding to a point, and when you cross a line, well, expect to be put in your place. Where I live now, their threads have.. let's just say a bit more of a edge...
The Gold Coast is dirty? Maybe Rush street has trash on it after the bar patrons are done with it on a Saturday night! But that gets whisked away pretty quickly. I think Americans are so used to having everything brank spankin' new around them that they mistake dirt for age! Most of the dirt and grime in the city THESE days is from the automobile emissions of suburban drivers. There is VERY little pollution-producing industry anywhere near central chicago anymore! And I rarely see trash on the street on the North Side, with the exception of a few ghetto pockets in Uptown and Rogers Park.
No,, Lookout Kid, the Gold Coast was super clean, which is why I lived there. Used to live in Lincoln Park. Lived on W. Armitage, near Wrigley Field and had a 2 flat (which God knows! I wish I hadn't sold now) in Ravenswood. But lived in the Gold Coast a very few years ago. It is really nice there.
It sucks that so many people from the east and south of Chicago come in through the most unattractive areas of town. Gary. Then the far southside. Smokestacks. Landfills. Gross stuff that the byproduct of development. Then again, we never want to SEE the gritty underbelly of progress, do we? Coming into town from the north or west is a totally different experience, imo.
I live in Indiana right now and when I (frequently) come to Chicago, I travel right through said area, but it certainly doesn't give me a negative view of the city. If anything these areas contain the most of the character of the city and I admire what they are and what they stand for just as much as the architecture downtown.
I find those areas incredibly interesting and to be appreciated in just slightly different ways than the rest of the city. In the end, industrial areas and slums are pretty dirty and may not be glitzy, tall, and shiny like the scrapers, but pretty or not, they are the foundation of this great city and the reason everything nice can work the way it does.
Last edited by PAKennedy; 11-15-2007 at 12:30 PM..
as a kid, it was always a thrill when we would drive to indiana at night, and you would just see the sky bright orange as you would come through gary, with the blast furnaces, steam, and flames glowing in the distance
Newer Sunbelt cities haven't had to deal with it as heavily because they haven't had time to decay. Not like cities in the Midwest and Northeast. ?????
Have you never been to LA or Compton, Watts, East LA, now you wanna talk hell hole, and it's a sunbelt city with TONS of urban decay!!! To remind us all what a S*** hole LA is, watch this... AND IT IS TO TRUE!!! YouTube - Falling Down (1993) few scenes from the movie And to think I used to live there. YIIIICCCKKKK! I'll take Chicago anyday over that again.
as a kid, it was always a thrill when we would drive to indiana at night, and you would just see the sky bright orange as you would come through gary, with the blast furnaces, steam, and flames glowing in the distance
Oh yes, I know that sight well. When the fires are on it looks almost post-apocalyptic.
... although, Gary has a fun minor-league baseball team called the Railcats. My nephew adores them because they'll shake his hand and let him (and all the other kids) run the bases after the game. I've been to a couple of games, it is quite a bit of fun actually. Their mascot is a cat swinging a beam of steel. It is the perfect mascot.
Perfect description. Its hard to describe the adrenaline rush of driving through an industrial landscape like that when its lit up in its full glory.
I kinda love it too, actually. It's like driving past the set of Blade Runner. Still, many coming from agricultural or post-industrial areas are going to be a bit taken aback by hitting the grittiest part of Chicagoland on the first bounce.
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Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
[i] (just kidding steve 
)
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