Any Ex-New Yorkers Living in Chicago? (Columbia, Manhattan: real estate, how much, home) - Illinois (IL) - City-Data Forum

artdesignlou · 11-07-2007, 08:51 AM

I'm thinking of moving to Chicago. I've lived in NYC almost all my life (moved to Orlando Florida 3 years ago and don't like it at all). Are there any ex-New Yorkers living in Chicago and loving it? Does it have a similar feel to New York or is it different bc it's in the midwest? What is it like outside the city in terms of natural beauty (hiking, forests, lakes, etc.)?

What are your thoughts on Chicago as a city in general? I know it's cold but it's a bit more affordable than NY in terms of real estate...

aragx6 · 11-07-2007, 08:53 AM

Check out this thread: http://www.city-data.com/forum/chica...g-chicago.html

TOOHOTT2BESTOPPED · 06-02-2010, 10:30 PM

Can anybody give me info on New Yorkers in Chicago? I'm from Florida and boy let me tell you it is over-populated with New Yorkers. Half of the people in Florida are from NY. I've been trying to find a setting where there's a lot as much New Yorkers. And it's not just me. A lot of folks in Florida are irrated with them and are looking for places to avoid them. http://www.city-data.com/forum/flori...florida-3.html

So is Chicago over-crowded with NYers like Florida? No offense if to the NYers who post on here if there is. Don't get your panties in a bunch. Please don't have an unfriendly approach with me either. I'm just trying to make a decision here.

andrew61 · 06-02-2010, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TOOHOTT2BESTOPPED

So is Chicago over-crowded with NYers like Florida?

I would say not really.

Chicago60614 · 06-03-2010, 02:11 PM

I would say Chicago is definitely NOT overcrowded with NYers.

One of my best friends was a bartender who moved from Manhattan about 4 years ago to Chicago. He didn't know anyone, and worked at a friend's bar where I met him.

A few remarks he would make:

Midwesterners he said tended to run in groups that were harder to push into compared to people in New York. He made friends here, but he said he noticed people already had their little cliches, and it was harder as a stranger to talk to people than back east.

He always watched in amazement at how drunk people in Chicago would get, and how they were a lot more "hair down, party animal, not osbsessed with image" compared to back in NYC. He liked that aspect a lot. He said people here tended to put having fun and being comfortable before looking good and obsessing over how they were being seen and reputations.

The weather was a little colder here, but it wasn't much of an issue since it doesn't last a really long time, and NYC gets cold anyway.

He liked the community aspect of Chicago, and he also loved how much cleaner it was with more breathing room. It was much more beautiful than he thought it would be.

He's Columbian/Cuban, but looks black (so everyone thinks he is). He didn't like that compared to NYC many of the black neighborhoods and aspects of that culture here seemed to be a little more "ghetto/thug" than back home. There were more class issues with the races here than in NYC.

Manigault · 06-03-2010, 07:16 PM

I had lunch today in PJ Clarke's with two fellow SOB's: Sons of the Bronx.

mikedoyleblogger · 06-04-2010, 01:27 AM

Toohott, I'm a New York native who moved here seven years ago from Brooklyn, and you couldn't pay me to move back to NYC (I know, it's been tried.) But much as I think Chicago is a far better place to live than my hometown is, there is not a large cotingent of New Yorkers in Chicago. Don't get me wrong; New Yorkers do live here. But not in any greater numbers than you might find relocated natives from other major cities living here.

Most of the New Yorkers I know or run into who don't live in Chicago always seem to complain about the winters (which they've usually never lived through), the relatively smaller cultural scene (which they've usually never experienced), or the alleged rudeness of the people (which is no surprise--when you inflict New York attitude on otherwise hyper-friendly people like Chicagoans, of course you're going to get rudeness right back--and deservedly so.)

There's an old joke that runs: What's harder than getting a New Yorker to move to Chicago? Getting them to move back to New York. I find it to be pretty accurate. When New Yorkers bring open minds to Chicago, we tend to fall in love with the place, and some of us choose to stay for good. Trouble is, most of my fellow New York natives are too wrapped up in thinking that NYC is the center of the world (Tokyo and London would probably beg to differ) to honestly appreciate the world beyond New York. The whole idea that New Yorkers proudly claim themselves to be too delicate for winter speaks volumes in this regard.

Not for nothing, this is why you find more of them where you live than where I live. It's almost as if there's a cultural airlock between the two cities--Chicago can be that off-putting to unprepared New Yorkers who expect it to feel just like New York just because it has a similarly lofty skyline.

I'm glad for that. After seven years living in a city as friendly and laid back as Chicago, most New Yorkers just annoy me when they visit, anyway. Walking a Gotham-centric New Yorker around the Loop can feel like leading a North Korean defector around Seoul to introduce them to the rest of the world and even seeing it right in front of them they're still too uptight to believe that it actually exists.

Ugh. They should all stay home and eat a soggy Sabrett's with ketchup. But if you're looking for a big city WITHOUT the worst of my brethren hanging around it, you couldn't pick a better place than Chicago.

Chicagoland60426 · 06-04-2010, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Chicago60614;14458046]
He's Columbian/Cuban, but looks black (so everyone thinks he is). He didn't like that compared to NYC many of the black neighborhoods and aspects of that culture here seemed to be a little more "ghetto/thug" than back home. There were more class issues with the races here than in NYC.

That is because he is black. Chicago does lack a large Afro-latino and West Indian population like you see in NYC with the Dominicans and some Puerto Ricans. Around 90% or so of the blacks in the city are African-Americans.

mikedoyleblogger · 06-04-2010, 02:00 AM

Good points, above. And for the record, there are black and Latino neighborhoods in NYC that feel plenty ghetto, so I don't know what that Columbian/Cuban friend is using as a base of comparison. Perhaps he means that Chicago's bad neighborhoods are larger or more numerous, which is arguably true. But as a pasty-faced white boy, I still wouldn't walk around East New York, South Jamaica, East Harlem, or the east end of Jackson Heights at night. Potentially at all for the first couple.

Chicago60614 · 06-04-2010, 08:36 AM

^ well I didn't mean that as some blanket statement about different groups in different cities. It was just a statement he had made, but he obviously wasn't doing an official study or anything.

I'd agree with the poster who said a lot of New Yorkers tend to hyper-compare things here to New York. One of the reasons my friend moved back was he just couldn't get "New York = The Way Things Should Be" out of his mind.