Anyone Move from New York to Chicago? Thoughts? (Lincoln, Washington: taxi driver, live in)

[compactspace]

Originally Posted by usamathman

Posted earlier.

Downtown Chicago is probably as close a city as one can get if they want the NY highrise experience.

I found three neighborhoods that I absolutely love: Printers Row, Greektown, and River North.

A person of excellent taste. I'd move to any of these three in a heartbeat.

[compactspace]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

And yeah, Chicago is Midwest to the core, but not small-town, at all. It's a big city; third biggest in the U.S. and nearly 10 million in the metro area.

And 'Midwest' is great.

Rich history, beautiful architecture, tremendous cultural and technological output. As a foreign transplant, I find the American worship of the 'Coasts' to be absolutely hilarious. I met one or two pretentious transplants here in NY who use Midwestern as an epithet. (I wonder how they'd feel to be travelling and overhear 'American' used the same way by some old-money Lombards.)

[compactspace]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

Dating will be really hard. I doubt you will beagle to get a date here. We don't have Tinder, or bars, excluding Buffalo Wild Wings,and, as you point out, everyone is marriedby the time they're 25.

Mostly what we do all day is sit around watching shows about people who live in NYC trying to get get tips on how we can make our lives more like them, even though NYC is on average filled with the exact same transplants who flock here for five years after college.

We yearn for even more crowded trains and traffic, and wish that instead of 50,000 4 am bars we had 500,000.

The shopping downtown is most accurately described as an Ohio outlet mall, so in addition to being single and bored, you will look ugly.

On the positive side, you will know absolutely everyone wherever you go, and they are virtually guaranteed to invite you over for some homemade pie and to watch a little Everyone Loves Ramond.

This is rolled gold truth.

My life, for instance, is like one long episode of Girls mixed with Seinfeld mixed with Taxi Driver. And I think it's so sweet when flyover provincials try to impress me.

[TheSunshineKid]

Originally Posted by compactspace

And 'Midwest' is great.

Rich history, beautiful architecture, tremendous cultural and technological output. As a foreign transplant, I find the American worship of the 'Coasts' to be absolutely hilarious. I met one or two pretentious transplants here in NY who use Midwestern as an epithet. (I wonder how they'd feel to be travelling and overhear 'American' used the same way by some old-money Lombards.)

bold: That's what I wondered as well. When people, who are American (born & raised type) mock the Midwest I tend to think "Funny, people abroad mock Americans in general, sometime with the disdain that Midwest often times is met with, so I guess it's a lose lose situation."

[TheSunshineKid]

Originally Posted by compactspace

This is rolled gold truth.

My life, for instance, is like one long episode of Girls mixed with Seinfeld mixed with Taxi Driver. And I think it's so sweet when flyover provincials try to impress me.

I remember by brother saying that he thought the characters in Seinfeld, after his honey moon phase with the show died, were "paranoid and narcissistic." Girls may be humorous, but it's an off-putting show with the lifestyle represented. Taxi Driver is a grand movie, but keep that type of world in the movies.

[TheSunshineKid]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

"Cosmopolitan" doesn't really mean anything. It's some sort of term pretentious people use to conflate fashion with worldliness and intellectual savvy.

My response to "this [insert city] is cosmopolitan" in a tone that the receiver should be impressed: I don't really care about that. I care if I can get a good meal - breakfast, lunch & dinner, and a quick bite if I get the munchies - good beer and decent transportation from A to B, then from B to C, and back.

I think the "cosmopolitan" is used in the same context as "diversity." Buzz words to signify something "forward", some type of Utopia. When people talk about diversity I respond in a similar fashion: I don't really care. What I care about if I can get good Italian, Chinese, Jewish, Thai, French, Polish, Southern Comfort (not the liquor) etc at a reasonable price. And how late are the restaurants open? How's the service? Haha.

[Chubsworth]

Cosmopolitan has an actual meaning though.

It means being comfortable with many different countries and cultures. In a city context it basically means how many different cultures and ethnicities are represented.

It's not BS to say NYC is cosmopolitan, it is the 2nd most diverse large city in the USA, after Houston. Houston surprises people but due to the energy sector a lot of people move there from all over the world including less common immigrant groups from oil producing countries in South America, Africa and central Asia.

Chicago is no slouch in the cosmopolitan aspect, it is the 4th most diverse large city. It does have the largest anglo population in the top five, which might make it "feel" less diverse.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by sydlee

I always say this about LA, and perhaps it's true of Chicago, NY, and other big cities: Whatever you're looking for, you'll find it there. After all, you are the common denominator wherever you go.

that pretty much puts you among the sane, rational, thoughtful people, sydlee

[jonnynonos]

I suppose it would be mildly hurtful if people who called the Midwest or any other place a "flyover state" were born and bred Park Avenue blue bloods or even native NYers or San Franciscans, but as has been pointed out, those cities, at least the glamorous downtown areas, are overwhelmingly populated by transplants from all over America. So who cares if some kid from Maine attending art school in Brooklyn calls you a "flyover state."

I've actually never heard the word used except on forums.

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by TheSunshineKid

My response to "this [insert city] is cosmopolitan" in a tone that the receiver should be impressed: I don't really care about that. I care if I can get a good meal - breakfast, lunch & dinner, and a quick bite if I get the munchies - good beer and decent transportation from A to B, then from B to C, and back.

I think the "cosmopolitan" is used in the same context as "diversity." Buzz words to signify something "forward", some type of Utopia. When people talk about diversity I respond in a similar fashion: I don't really care. What I care about if I can get good Italian, Chinese, Jewish, Thai, French, Polish, Southern Comfort (not the liquor) etc at a reasonable price. And how late are the restaurants open? How's the service? Haha.

I agree; it says more about someone who says it than any actual meaning. If you were to say at a party, for instance, that "Rome is very cosmopolitan" you would sound like an utter buffoon.

The only instance I can think of where you wouldn't sound like a complete fool using it would be to describe a small, unknown city that was "surprisingly cosmopolitan." And frankly even then you would sound like a pretentious nitwit.

At least to us troglodytes in the flyover states.