Is Chicago mainly a blue-collar city? (Manhattan, Standard: employment, minimum wage, live)

[ToriaT]

Lots of blue collar roots in Chicago but its a changed city...no longer blue collar...yuppies and gentrification has run rampant....Chicago is now an upscale city in many parts and is attracting visitors from all areas of the globe that want to see our city and its attractions.

[Avengerfire]

Chicago is still plenty blue collar. It is upscale in maybe 25% at most of the neighborhoods. Give me a break.

But coming from someone that obviously thinks that Chicago only consists of Montrose to the North, Cermak to the south and Western to the west it is not surprising.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by ToriaT

Lots of blue collar roots in Chicago but its a changed city...no longer blue collar...yuppies and gentrification has run rampant....Chicago is now an upscale city in many parts and is attracting visitors from all areas of the globe that want to see our city and its attractions.

To listen to folks like this, you'd think the whole city or even most of it is nothing but a sea of martini bars and fusion bistros. I wonder if those who say that the city is "no longer blue collar" and "yuppies and gentrification has run rampant" have ever been south of Cermak or west of Western. There's still a whole lot of ungentrified and some just plain hard-up territory out there -- still far more than gentrified areas.

[Nafster]

The city is still very much blue collar, more so than New York or even Boston for that matter.

That's not a bad thing at all. Chicago's continuing blue collar roots give it it's down to earth, homey and friendly feel. I prefer that feel in a city.

[hsw]

Need to realize that much of the "white-collar" economy of any major urban US region is in the suburbs, not the city

~40% of NYC region hedge funds are in Greenwich, not Manhattan

SiliconValley is all suburban sprawl 40-80mis S of City of SF, which is essentially a distant yuppie suburb of SV

Much of Bos' elite work in Cambridge or in outer ring suburbs at various tech cos. (EMC is largest)...Bos region is fairly unremarkable in terms of overall financial/tech elite employment...even weaker than Chic

Chic is perhaps most centralized US urban region, w/much of sophisticated wealth working out of offices in Loop....but many industrial cos. are based in various distant NS/Western suburbs

Interestingly, by most metrics, Chic region is far more "white-collar" than LA region in education/income stats....LA's BeverlyHills truly is a phenomenal wkend playground for guys w/money from all of US' major regions...but very little intrinsically-derived wealth in LA region for some 18MM popul

[Drover]

^^ Oh for crying out loud. Take your hedge funds and shove 'em up your....

[lincolnparker]

Ditto, avengerfire! Sometimes i narrow that down to irving park to the north, van buren to the south, ashland to the west. LOL

Originally Posted by Avengerfire

Chicago is still plenty blue collar. It is upscale in maybe 25% at most of the neighborhoods. Give me a break.

But coming from someone that obviously thinks that Chicago only consists of Montrose to the North, Cermak to the south and Western to the west it is not surprising.

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

Originally Posted by chicagocubs

Well, Boston is more old-money... elitist...NYC is arty...and Chicago, a hard-working blue collar town.

Yes, there is gentrification and there are yuppies, but, overall, the city has historically been blue-collar.

Wanna throw a few more sweeping generalizations in there?

[ChiMack]

i think chicago is still a blue collar town with the exception of those few yuppie areas

[Chicagoland60426]

Chicago is not nearly being mostly yuppiefied, I say 25-30% of Chicago is yuppieville. I wouldn't call Chicago a blue collar city either( calling it a town sound kind of farm-ish to me), it have too much of a nice/clean downtown and international. Same with NYC, yuppieville is mainly Manhattan out of the 5 boroughs. Chicago in its grittiest form is on the westside and some southside neighborhoods. The cities I say that are true yuppieville cities are San Francisco and Seattle. The only way Chicago can be seen as a true white collar city is if it gentrify the westside or a large part of the southside. The northside is not enough, Southside is 60% of the city.