Is Chicago mainly a blue-collar city? (Madison, Manhattan: apartment, house, live in)

[lincolnparker]

San francisco as a yuppieville? u gotta be kidding!!!!

Originally Posted by 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.

[IloveLoganSquare]

Oh yeh! those fake Chicagoans that would actually pay 2 dollars for a 5 minute bus ride to my neighborhood bar just so they could save 1,000 dollars a month. How cras!

Originally Posted by lincolnparker

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

[Lookout Kid]

Chicago is not really a blue collar town anymore. Those jobs in sectors like manufacturing, tool and die, machine shops, etc. are mostly gone from the city proper, and the old Chicago "blue collar" people have moved to the working class burbs. If you actually set foot in a "blue collar" neighborhood you will find a lot of cops and firefighters, or people who were raised in a blue collar family, but the number of actual blue collar workers is down to probably less than 10% of the city. Someone working in a car wash or at a fast food joint is not "blue collar". They are the working poor. And the guy who used to own his own muffler shop but now supervises the local Jiffy Lube is barely blue collar.

On the lowest side of the economic ladder, Chicago has a large underclass, followed by a larger group of "working poor" with jobs I would place BELOW "Blue Collar", and on the top a growing group of young professionals, rich fat cats, and empty nesters who are still probably less than 25% of the city (the "gentrification" you keep hearing about).

[ToriaT]

Quote:
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.

Oh I agree Drover. There are still plenty of areas that are blue collar or as you say "hard up territory". Its just that many areas have been gentrified so its all relative. And a lot of it is where you frequent. I'm amazed at so many places where I would not have thought of going twenty or thirty years ago have been renewed and are now vibrant areas.

[grapico]

lol san fran is VERY yuppie... what? how is it not. yes they have a different STYLE of it but it doesn't negate the yuppie sense out there. It's only 2nd behind maybe mid town manhattan. Marin county is the highest per capita income county in the US! (census data)

If you don't think it yuppie you should spend some significant time there, all the hippie and bohemian stuff moved north a longgg time ago.

Don't worry Chicagoans, you are a long way behind SF on a whole. (<-- have lived in both places in the last 5 years)

[chicagocubs]

Originally Posted by CarolinaBredChicagoan

Wanna throw a few more sweeping generalizations in there?

that's what this is, isn't it???

[SJaye]

Originally Posted by grapico

If you don't think it yuppie you should spend some significant time there, all the hippie and bohemian stuff moved north a longgg time ago.

Where did it go?

[thePR]

Originally Posted by IloveLoganSquare

Chicago's average income is about 6% lower than NYC, so yeh I'd say that we have slightly more blue collar and probably less I-banker types to help affect the curve.

The average income, when it's that close, isn't a good way to judge. Take California for example where your money doesn't go as far.

[IloveLoganSquare]

yeh but minimum wage and bulk jobs are kinda the same in my experience in all cities...

Originally Posted by thePR

The average income, when it's that close, isn't a good way to judge. Take California for example where your money doesn't go as far.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by IloveLoganSquare

yeh but minimum wage and bulk jobs are kinda the same in my experience in all cities...

There is still a huge difference (when you are making that little-a couple thousand a year more is a huge amount) in minimum wage between states and different cities right now. It has been greater however in the last few years before new state and federal laws have been passed to somewhat even the gap.

There ARE huge cost of living differences. Someone making min. wage in Kentucky is way better off with costs of living even though they make a dollar or so less than someone in Chicago making min. wage.

U.S. Department of Labor - Employment Standards Administration (ESA) - Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - Minimum Wage Laws in the States - January 1, 2008