Happy Chicagoans (Paris, Berlin: house, tax, living)

[thePR]

In Today's Chicago Tribune, the front page of the business section featured an article about the satisfaction of citizens with their city. Chicago was one of fourteen cities ranked and they were number one.

Chicago - 49% "very satisfied"
Sydney - 44
New York - 41
Berlin - 38
Los Angeles - 35
Lyon, France - 35
Paris - 35
Shanghi - 29
London - 28
Alexandria, Egypt - 22
Prague, Czech Rep. - 22
Mexico City - 19
Beijing - 18
Tokyo - 14

What's even bigger is that the company that had this survey made is moving to Chicago and is "The largest water firm in the world."

[long101]

I wonder if this was before or after the tax hike

[Drover]

One word: affordability. It's a lot easier to enjoy what your city has to offer if you don't have to run yourself ragged just to afford living there. The quality-of-life to cost-of-living ratio in Chicago just can't be beat.

[hsw]

No doubt Chic is one of world's 5 most livable, most economically relevant urban regions....

But it's a silly survey....not many people choose to spend their time to fill out such nonsense surveys, so sampling bias....and those who are clueless and/or have lower stds are generally satisfied more easily....

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by Drover

One word: affordability. It's a lot easier to enjoy what your city has to offer if you don't have to run yourself ragged just to afford living there. The quality-of-life to cost-of-living ratio in Chicago just can't be beat.

I guess relatively its not bad. But its not the Chicago of 20 or even 10 years ago as far as affordability goes. if you want a single family house in the city, you are going to pay for it. The middle class is slowly but surely getting pushed out. Most of those who can afford to live in the nice areas are well off to begin with.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by via chicago

I guess relatively its not bad. But its not the Chicago of 20 or even 10 years ago as far as affordability goes. if you want a single family house in the city, you are going to pay for it. The middle class is slowly but surely getting pushed out. Most of those who can afford to live in the nice areas are well off to begin with.

It's not the Chicago of 10 or 20 years ago as far as livability goes either. The same things that have made it a more attractive place to live have not surprisingly made it a more expensive place to live. But it's still a lot cheaper than most other truly international cities without giving up much in the way of amenities, entertainment, nightlife, etc to those cities. What do you think a single-family home costs in New York, L.A., London, Paris, Sydney, etc., provided you can even find one in some of these places? It's not exactly the only housing option here either.

Chicago may give up a lot to places like London and NYC in terms of sheer quantity, but it still has enough critical mass -- that is, you'll never exhaust all of your options -- that it gives up little in quality and variety.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by long101

I wonder if this was before or after the tax hike

Yeah, no kidding.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by via chicago

I guess relatively its not bad. But its not the Chicago of 20 or even 10 years ago as far as affordability goes. if you want a single family house in the city, you are going to pay for it. The middle class is slowly but surely getting pushed out. Most of those who can afford to live in the nice areas are well off to begin with.

The way things are going it will be the people that have almost everything and the people that have almost nothing in the city. That spells big trouble.