Is Chicago the best major U.S. city to live, work, and play? (to live in, price)

[coldwine]

Originally Posted by studedude

I stand corrected. I must have mistyped search parameters on everyblock.com. You are correct re murder so far this year. There seems to be an escalation in gang warfare in some neighborhoods lately. Since we only hear bad news it may sound worse to me than it is.

I will however stand by my statement concerning tollway. Anything that goes on in the Chicago metro area is or has been controlled by Richard J or M Daley. If Chicago got money to syncronize lights you can bet it was at the expense of some town downstate.

There I have to jump in. The city of Chicago overwhelmingly subsidizes the state of Illinois. The state of Illinois, in return, gives the city of Chicago nothing at all. I forget the ratio but the amount of Chicago tax dollars within total Illinois tax revenue paid to the federal government every year is some insane proportion.

[Chicago60614]

^ yeah, it's frustrating. Especially when people downstate just assume they subsidize Chicago since a lot of state money goes towards Chicagoland. Of course when 75% of the state lives there, naturally most of the money would be directed to where the people paying the taxes actually live.

When you get down to it though, Chicago has a lot more people using a lot less infrastructure per person than people living downstate. Look at all those rural interstates, highways, bridges, etc. etc. Pound for pound, it's just cheaper to sustain people when they live closer together. More people to support the crowded roads/trains.

[miserylovesco.]

I've lived in Chicago for 27 years, it's an awesome place.
If you can deal with the cold, it makes summer that much better.
I'm leaving for my own reasons, it's where my heart will always be but, I need a different kind of lifestyle.

I'm moving to New Orleans in June.
I will miss baseball for sure, the WHITE SOX kind of baseball.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by miserylovesco.

I will miss baseball for sure, the WHITE SOX kind of baseball.

Are you kidding me? The only time Id like White Sox baseball is if I moved 1,500 miles away to New Orleans!

[60-minutes-II]

Heh, Mayor Daley is a problem since most of friends are in the top positions and no one does anything about it. We have to pay a lot of taxes to support stupid programs that the Tsar thinks of. And what happens? We end up having to pay more taxes next year because Daley thinks of our money as his. I think we would have a better and state IMO if we got rid of Daley and his cronies and than beautify the city after Daley is out. Because in reality Daley isn't the reason the city is prospering it is because of people to blind to see that Daley is a negative aspect to the political culture here in the city and the entire state.
As for muders well we could do better. Which is why we should try to move the problem out to the suburbs.

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

Chicago is one of the best. Beaches + vibrant downtown + tons of interesting neighborhoods all the way up Clark St from the River to Wrigleyville. Beats NY for me.

But I voted no because the weather, and a business community that seems to be a few years behind the times for those of us in the technology sector. Still, probably would live there if the climate were a little different.

I work in the tech sector. It's juuuust fine up here. I see you're in DC Metro. Northern VA, Boston metro, and SF metro are the only areas, off the top of my head, that I'd say are better for tech jobs. Then again, that depends on the technology. Either way. Massive economy. Tons of enterprise.

I'd also like to say that I'm fully mobile. I generally work from home, and could live anywhere. I'm taking off for a few weeks on Monday, in fact. That said, I live in Chicago. I'm voting with my rent check. I don't know if it's the best place to live, work, and play, but I love it and am glad I moved here.

[eureka1]

Chicago is tops. San Francisco has become congested, ridiculously expensive and just NO FUN anymore.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by eureka1

Chicago is tops. San Francisco has become congested, ridiculously expensive and just NO FUN anymore.

I went to San Francisco a year ago and loved it. In my personal opinion, yes it maybe rediculously expensive but I could see why. It truly is awesome (in that European-historic and amazing nature preserved very close by kind of way).

Chicago is a great city, because it did very well with what it has, considering what it had going against it had a lot things going against it. (flat topography, cold/gray landscape, Al Capone images, heavy industry, racial tensions, etc.)

[bluejaye]

It depends on what kind of environment you want to live in, what kind of work you do and how you want to play. One persons paradise is another's hell.

[cdesz]

Absolutely not! There is hardly any friendliness left, the pace of life in the entire Chicagoland area is like a loaded freight train without any brakes going down a steep slope, and only the wealthiest people with the most expensive vehicles on the road ever have a chance to socialize. Not to mention the average workweek in DuPage County is 60 to 75 hours! There are way better cities to play and live in without burning yourself out, like Miami, New York, and Los Angeles, for instance.