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Do you sometimes think of moving out of Chicago? This city is degenerating under Mayor Daley. Soon parking meters will be too expensive. CTA is getting way expensive. Shopping at Jewel's and Dominick's is expensive. What else is expensive?
Sometimes I think I should just move to Houston or another US city. Chicago's attractions to me is that I live in a great location in Wicker Park and that LSD is great to workout in. But shopping, groceries, and restaurants are better in Houston.
And I'm getting tired of applying to the same Chicago companies that don't even hire me. Maybe I'm not gonna last in Chicago...
But I hear ya on landing a job around here. I had my eye on Chicago for a long while, and it took me a couple of months of emailing resumes to get a job here.
But a lot of companies don't like transfers, so maybe that was slowing me down I don't know.
it took me a couple of months of emailing resumes to get a job here.
since I came here 3 yrs ago from Poland I changed my job about 15 times so far.. I aways buy a Polish paper, there is plenty of employment ads from Polish employers and I am always lucky with finding a job... Nonetheless even though I am legal to work, speak not bad English and have a bachelor's degree I was never hired by Americans when submitting resumes to them. My father has been living here for 25 years and his English is crap but he also never complains on unemployment. So call Polish employers, they will just ask you to come on next day to work and no stupid resume is required On the other hand you probably talk about higher pays than 12-15 $/hr and different kind of job than construction, mechanic and other immigrant jobs...
People like you. Leave if you have a problem, don't complain.
So should everybody write "I love Chicago" here to make you happy? There are many people that I know who don't like Chicago and have to live here. Sometimes it's not so easy to leave. If you make a poll in any part of US if people like living there you will always find many who don't. Many people from big cities would love to move to some remote place and vice versa... But I assure you, if I collect enough money to leave, I'll do it.
So should everybody write "I love Chicago" here to make you happy? There are many people that I know who don't like Chicago and have to live here. Sometimes it's not so easy to leave. If you make a poll in any part of US if people like living there you will always find many who don't. Many people from big cities would love to move to some remote place and vice versa... But I assure you, if I collect enough money to leave, I'll do it.
It's simple, you came here by choice you can leave just the same. There is a difference between saying that you don't like the city and saying things like you did
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tao111
You can always move to Wisconsin or Indiana to escape the crapola of Chicago. Just make sure to change your license plates or your vehicle will probably be messed with.
Everything you say has some subtle condescending tone.
Location: Schaumburg, please don't hate me for it.
955 posts, read 1,832,102 times
Reputation: 1235
Actually I want to move back to the city someday, but right now I can't handle the 23+ mile work commute, So I wallow out here in mundane,but convenient suburbia.
I still spend a lot of my free time in the city and I always get homesick when I do. Up until last year I was still living on the fringe of the city (Elmwood Park), but now I'm a citizen of "mall-o-topia". It's a nice town, but it's dull as white bread.
"We"? Sorry, but you do not speak for everyone on this board. I, for one, was quite interested in hearing this poster's opinion.
BTW, I just checked out your most recent posts and noticed that most of them (at least 75 percent) were snipes at other posters. What's up with that?
You could really use some work on your manners.
If you go back just a few posts you can see that I'm not the only poster not pleased with this poster. "We" is just two or more people, I did not say "everyone." Have you seen his other posts? It's just attacks. If you're willing to look at my posts maybe look at the others' to fully understand what is happening.
Funny that you mention manners when you have this post and others.
Location: Cleveland, OH USA / formerly Chicago for 20 years
4,069 posts, read 7,317,864 times
Reputation: 3062
Quote:
Originally Posted by thePR
If you go back just a few posts you can see that I'm not the only poster not pleased with this poster. "We" is just two or more people, I did not say "everyone." Have you seen his other posts? It's just attacks. If you're willing to look at my posts maybe look at the others' to fully understand what is happening.
Sorry, but I just don't see it. Furthermore, I'm afraid that "two or more people" do not get to dictate what gets posted on this board and what doesn't.
The way I see it, if people have issues with certain aspects of Chicago, they should feel free to voice them. And while other posters are certainly free to reply by saying "shut up", or "if you don't like it here, leave", or any variation thereof, doing so is not only rude but totally unhelpful, and serves to do nothing but betray those posters' own insecurities.
Many others come here because they're considering a move to Chicago and need to learn more about the city. And I'm assuming they're not interested in merely hearing some glowing sales-pitch hype -- they want to know everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so that they have sufficient information on which to base their decision. I know I would want that, and wouldn't want people to shy away from giving me the negatives about a place, even if it's just their subjective personal perceptions.
Now, we may well get our share of trolls coming here, who have no other motive than to post inflammatory stuff and stir the pot, but I, for one, choose to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume sincerity until proven otherwise. But when I am strongly convinced someone is a troll, my policy is to simply not reply to them... you know, "don't feed the trolls" as the expression goes. The way I see it, if I were to get snarky with a genuine troll and spout something along the lines of "Shut up and go away", then I'm playing right into their hands. After all, a troll's primary purpose is to get a rise out of others. Why give them the satisfaction? If everyone were to just ignore them, they'd eventually get bored and leave.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thePR
Funny that you mention manners when you have this post and others.
How so? Please show me one example of where I've been downright ugly with another poster.
Location: Cleveland, OH USA / formerly Chicago for 20 years
4,069 posts, read 7,317,864 times
Reputation: 3062
Whew! Now that I've gotten all that out of my system, I'm going to go back and answer the OP's question.
Yes, I do sometimes think about leaving Chicago. In the mid-90s I relocated here from Cleveland to accept a job promotion with the telecom where I was working. I'd visited Chicago on several occasions and loved it and had already decided that one day I'd move here, so when the opportunity came up, I accepted it eagerly.
Five years later, after a company merger, I accepted a very generous buyout offer and took early retirement. No longer haviing a job tying me down in Chicago, I was free to stay or go. I took a look at all the big-city cultural, recreational, and entertainment amenities Chicago had to offer (museums, theater, nightlife, restaurants, etc.) and decided to stay so that I could enjoy them now that I had time on my hands and freedom from 60-hour workweeks and long, tiring commutes.
Today, however, I'm rethinking that decision. I'm taking a look at how my lifestyle has panned out and asking myself just how much I do in Chicago that I couldn't do in a number of so-called "lesser" cities -- all while living more cheaply and in somewhat less crowded environs.
For example, I live in the Lakeview area and love everything that's here... but sometimes I think I could be just as happy in, say, Minneapolis' Uptown area, or Denver's Capitol Hill, or Portland's Belmont-Hawthorne district, or similar areas in other smaller big cities. Sure, Chicago has more of everything, but do I really need all that? Does it justify -- for me -- the higher cost of living here? Plus, as I get older, I find the pace of the city gets to me more and more, and the streets are too crowded and the people too reckless, and it's wearing me out. I'm thinking perhaps other cities might offer "enough" urban amenities to keep me stimulated while balancing that with somewhat lower population densities and less "craziness" so that I don't feel overstimulated quite so often.
(One criterion I do have, however, is that I don't want to have to resort to depending on a car to get around, which means I need a place with at least decent public transit and not too sprawling. Modern sunbelt cities are definitely out. Not my thing.)
Sometimes I even think about moving back to my native Cleveland... and I know what jesse means about cheaper housing in Houston, because in the Cleveland area you can buy a lakefront highrise condo in a great area for as little as $30K, or sometimes even less... but when I do go back home for a visit, I spend some time looking around and I say, "God, I could never live here again." So obviously when I look back at my hometown in my mind, I let my nostalgia cause me to romanticize the place too much, and when I take another look at the reality, it doesn't quite fit my romanticized notions.
Which leads me to another point: I try to avoid the "grass is always greener" mentality. After all, when I first moved to Chicago, I thought the place was "Mecca"... but somewhere along the way I misplaced my rose-colored glasses and started seeing all this city's faults and warts. So, too, will it eventually be with any other place I decide to move to. I'm well aware that there is no such place as Utopia... not on this planet, anyway.
So for now I'm staying put... and will do so for the next couple of years at least. Then I'll decide whether to stay or to move on. In the meantime, I'm not going to wish my life away, as my mom used to put it.
Another option I'm considering is to stay in the Chicago area, but move more to the fringes, or even to an inner-ring suburb... for example, I'm very drawn to Oak Park and am thinking that might be a nice place to settle as I get older. It's still walkable and has a decent amount of urban "stuff" (shops, restaurants) although not so much nightlife (which I've mostly lost interest in, anyway), and is somewhat quieter and slower-paced and friendlier than the north lakefront neighborhoods. And it's still a short train ride from downtown Chicago. So that's a possibility.
I have spent a lot of time in Houston and you are right it is exactly like Chicago. The restaurants are better, the shopping is better, the groceries are better. And the CTA and parking meters are nowhere. Houston is so awesome. AND there ARE ten million people in Houston. It's just heaven really. Everyone reading this let's collectively agree to take a trip to Houston to experience culture and life the way we have never lived before. The skyscrapers reach to the stars, there are acting careers galore, cutting edge medicine and research, and there are real Cowboys filling up all of the bars but only when you want them to be there like to buy you a drink. Then they disappear. We are all really just cattle rustlers like god intended lost from Houston forever in all of it's glory. When world travelers come to America, they say, "hey you know what... Let's go to Houston, the home of George Bush." But they say it in France talk of course.
I am obviously being sarcastic. I took the time to write this to help you process how insane the comparison is. However, Houston does have ten million people. That's a plus too!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesse69
Do you sometimes think of moving out of Chicago? This city is degenerating under Mayor Daley. Soon parking meters will be too expensive. CTA is getting way expensive. Shopping at Jewel's and Dominick's is expensive. What else is expensive?
Sometimes I think I should just move to Houston or another US city. Chicago's attractions to me is that I live in a great location in Wicker Park and that LSD is great to workout in. But shopping, groceries, and restaurants are better in Houston.
And I'm getting tired of applying to the same Chicago companies that don't even hire me. Maybe I'm not gonna last in Chicago...
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