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Old 07-17-2010, 01:59 AM
 
Location: South Philly
1,943 posts, read 6,953,664 times
Reputation: 658

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Quote:
Originally Posted by high mileage View Post
I do know one who female who lives by herself in Brooklyn in a decent aparment, but she pratically lives on fruits, Ramen noodles, and water. I tell them how cheap it is to live in Cincinnati, and I hear things like "yeah, but you're in Cincinnati" or another buddy of mine said, "Why in the hell did you choose to live in 'rust belt ass' Cincinnati."
It's definitely a rude sentiment and I have heard things like that before. Heck, I was up in Brooklyn two years ago and some girl (a friend of a friend) was making fun of me for living in Philly. Saying stuff like "I don't understand why everyone is moving there. I went down there last month to check it out and I just don't get it." A lot of people have been leaving Brooklyn, and NYC entirely, for the same reasons they left Manhattan 10 years ago and for some reason New Yorkers get really defensive when you mention Philadelphia. But what made the conversation kind of funny was that we were in Williamsburg and the neighborhood is still a bit of a dump that doesn't really have the much going on.

In a way though, I sort of get where she's coming from (even though I've also lived in NYC and to me the price of living there isn't worth what you get out of it) because once you've been living for a few years in a dense, urban place where you don't need a car, where there are so many different kinds of people and things and events at your fingertips all the time you get used to it and giving it up is a kind of withdrawal. At this stage in my life (married w/ kid) I could probably be happy in a place like Cincinnati or St. Louis (lived there briefly) but 10 years ago it wouldn't have worked for me. Even now I struggle with the idea that someday I might have to live in a place where everything I need isn't within a 15 minute bike ride of my house.

Quote:
Sounds exactly like NYC. I have friends I grew up with in CT and college buddies who are living just like that: four, five, six, even eight deep in shabby apartments, no ac, exposed pipes, etc, just to live in NYC (granted they are living in Manhattan).
I grew up in the NY suburbs and worked in Manhattan after college. Back then (mid-90s) recent college grads could still afford to live in downtown neighborhoods like the East Village and SoHo but even then a lot of my co-workers were already part of the exodus out to Brooklyn or Hoboken.

It used to be that in Manhattan (among the 20 and 30-somethings) 40-50% of the people you'd meet grew up in the metro area and the rest were from all over the country and to a lesser degree the world. Nowadays normal people can't afford anywhere in Manhattan and the only people who live there are the people who grew up there or rich people from around the country and the world. All the 20-30 somethings live in Brooklyn and 70% of them are from the midwest. I wish I was joking. The rest are mostly local with a lot of locals living in Jersey City and Hoboken.

Quote:
A lot of people on the coasts have very negative and ignorant perceptions of Cincinnati and the midwest as a whole.
I've honestly never heard anyone say anything disparaging about Cinci. People don't really talk about it much at all unless it comes up in convo that someone went to school there. If people are going to abuse a place for being (insert reference to being backwards or boring here) it's usually West Virginia, Kentucky or Iowa and, in Philly the most popular places to scorn are (in order) New Jersey but in particular South Jersey followed by Central PA (aka Pennsyltucky) and finally, Pittsburgh. It's really only people from Pittsburgh that like to make fun of Ohio.

I think people here generally LOVE Chicago. People also seem to really like Minneapolis (but maybe not the weather).

Quote:
With that being said, if money were no object, I would live in NYC in a heartbeat, but I can live like a king here in Cincinnnati without taking a hit to the pocket and save at the same time.
I definitely wouldn't. Everything that made NYC what it was was scrubbed away by Giuliani. It lost its soul and what made it attractive to all the artists and creative talent is greatly diminished. These days it's a 20 minute subway ride from midtown just to hear a New York accent. I can live where I do now and visit that theme park whenever I want.

Quote:
And FWIW, even if I had the money to live in LA, I would not live there. I visited once, didn't really care for the place and the fake, plastic people there. LA is too sprawled out for my tastes and I also like having four seasons.
I'd like to try it out for a year or two. Just to see how the other half lives. I've been out there twice on vacation and I'm intrigued. There core of LA is definitely dense enough to keep you busy without having to go too far and these days is reasonably well connected with subways and light rail but I agree that the culture leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it would be a good base for seeing all the west coast/southwest things that would take me dozens of vacations to see otherwise.

Quote:
I lived south of the Mason-Dixon briefly, Charleston, S.C. to be exact and never again. That has to be one of the most overrated places in the U.S. (along with Orlando). I like all the history Charleston has though, and the architecture.
I also lived in Chuck and I agree 100%.
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Old 07-17-2010, 08:16 AM
 
Location: Cambridge, MA
4,881 posts, read 13,742,426 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wilson1010 View Post
I only go during the week and usually before lunch.
On Saturdays it's a whole different story. The entire place teems with humanity. Many of the merchants don't even bother with opening on some days during the week.
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Old 07-17-2010, 08:32 AM
 
10,135 posts, read 27,343,947 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by goyguy View Post
On Saturdays it's a whole different story. The entire place teems with humanity. Many of the merchants don't even bother with opening on some days during the week.
That's true. My wife's cousins sell produce outside on the west end of the market on Saturdays only. I'll stop by this morning on my way to Avril's and see what it looks like these days.
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Old 07-17-2010, 08:55 AM
 
Location: Temporarily in Pawtucket, R.I.
269 posts, read 774,763 times
Reputation: 138
I'll probably see you there and not even know who you are. I'm headed there in a little while to get my supply of fruits.
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Old 07-17-2010, 09:33 AM
 
Location: Cambridge, MA
4,881 posts, read 13,742,426 times
Reputation: 6947
Default Disneyland NY, and the Second City

A resounding "AMEN" to the comment about Manhattan losing its soul. I can't stand what's happened to Times Square, talk about a theme park. The Internet would've done in most of the porn shops/theaters anyway, and "cleaning up" the area took away more than that stuff. On 42nd St there used to be an amazing multistory military surplus store I'd go wild in: $1 raincoats, $3 duffle bags practically big enough for stashing a sofa, etc. There were lots of other grungy shops with crazy bargains to be had. Even though most of the billed films were X-rated, it was still a neat sight to see all those old-school theater marquees lined up. Sure, there were panhandlers and supposed or actual drug dealers mingling with the crowds on the sidewalk. SO WHAT. Planet Hollywood and The Disney Store didn't prevent somebody from trying to set off a car bomb there. Matter of fact, it was a member of that maligned species known as "street vendor" who saved the day.
Last I heard, 14th St was holding on to the title of Downscale Shopping Mecca of NYC. But it's probably feeling the pressure between Greenwich Village's perpetual popularity and the mad gentrification in Chelsea. Also alarming is the disappearance of classic New York cheapo chain stores like Korvettes and Loehmann's, not to mention Nobody Beats the Wiz (which did get beaten by Best Buy. ) KMart in Midtown! Home Depot in Queens! Why does this not excite me? (LOL)
When Boston friends of mine moved to Brooklyn in order for half the couple to go to NYU Film School (all right, all right...) they found a great, affordable floor-through apartment in a classic Bklyn rowhouse complete with high steep front stoop. The neighborhood was almost entirely AA and several blocks on the "wrong side" of 7th Ave in Park Slope. Diners served gigantic portions of food for insane prices, and one didn't have to trek all that much farther if the local "ghetto grocer" Key Food didn't carry something needed. A nearby "store" set up in an abandoned basement was a quick n' easy place to buy illegal party goods. Well after dark the shouts of kids playing stickball in the street wafted up and down the block. But the first inroads of change happened when somebody bought a rowhouse and converted it into a yuppie B & B. The gentrifying actually went pretty slowly in terms of how it goes sometimes, but by the turn of the century it was totally a done deal and my friends had long since fled to Jersey.
People "love" Chicago??? I hate it almost as much as LA. Sure, some of the art museums as well as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Shedd Aquarium are awesome to visit. Navy Pier is a very cool place. Skyscrapers? OK. High-rise apartments? OK. Every big city has some of both. The Magnificent Mile? Sorry, wrong gender, I wasn't "born to shop." CTA offers some of the slowest dirtiest sketchiest mass transit I've ever experienced. If a neighborhood doesn't have high-rises and brick boxes for residences it has crumbling tenements and/or aging brick ranch houses. BLECHHHHH. The expressways stay jammed in both directions practically 24-7. Maybe the infamous warehouses of humanity known as "the projects" are finally getting wiped off the map, but the ethnic/economic segregation persists and is probably more glaringly apparent there than 'most any place. (Disclaimer: I've never been to Detroit outside the airport.) One of my sisters and her family live in an upscaling part of the city, so I'm aggravated twice over since I not only have to go to CHICAGO to see them but then have to be someplace where there's gentrification going on. Hahaha, it sux to be goyguy.
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Old 07-18-2010, 11:23 AM
 
Location: Ohio
571 posts, read 1,357,779 times
Reputation: 685
Default another mention

Another mention of Cincinnati in Los Angeles:

Air conditioning and its impact on American life and culture - latimes.com

Now before you go dissing on either LA or AC, I would like to mention that the writer obviously never lived here during a really hot summer such as this one, and also,
I grew up without AC, both at home and at school, and I don't miss those days at all!
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Old 07-19-2010, 10:05 AM
 
Location: Cincinnati
577 posts, read 1,271,655 times
Reputation: 255
I used to live in San Francisco and my wife lived in Chicago and they are both nice cities but what is the use living there if you can't afford enjoying it? In Cincinnati we can afford to live in a nice area and go to the great restaurants and places around town. Plus, we can afford to visit the places we once lived. Our friends from those other cities don't understand it and I ask them to come visit but guess what? They can't afford to travel here.
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Old 07-19-2010, 01:08 PM
 
Location: South Philly
1,943 posts, read 6,953,664 times
Reputation: 658
Quote:
Originally Posted by goyguy View Post
People "love" Chicago??? I hate it almost as much as LA. Sure, some of the art museums as well as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Shedd Aquarium are awesome to visit. Navy Pier is a very cool place. Skyscrapers? OK. High-rise apartments? OK. Every big city has some of both. The Magnificent Mile? Sorry, wrong gender, I wasn't "born to shop."
My point wasn't to compare Chicago to NYC or Boston but rather to point out that it's a place in the midwest that many "coastal types" not only appreciate but also move to. In other words, it's not the geography that people are looking for - it's the amenities.

Anyway, I don't know too much about the downtown Chicago tourist attractions. I didn't spend much time there. I stayed just north of Wrigley Field, didn't find it particularly gentrified or gentrifying, didn't see many high rises or tenements. With a few variations in housing style i didn't find it to be much different than my dad's neighborhood in Midwood (brooklyn).

I used buses occasionally but never had a problem with the red or brown lines in getting where I needed to go and I found getting into the loop (the few times I wanted to go there) far easier than trying to get from Brooklyn to Midtown.
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Old 07-19-2010, 01:44 PM
 
Location: Cincinnati
3,336 posts, read 6,909,721 times
Reputation: 2084
i "love" chicago. sure the architecture isn't that great, but the urban design is. it also is a comfortable city with a midwestern feel, while offering all the amenities you would expect from the 3rd largest city in the country. i enjoy walking chicago more than new york, it isn't as crowded, it is easier to get around, and it hasn't been hollywood-ized to death like new york. of course, i prefer cincinnati, but chicago is my large american city of choice
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Old 07-19-2010, 02:16 PM
 
10,135 posts, read 27,343,947 times
Reputation: 8398
Quote:
Originally Posted by progmac View Post
i "love" chicago. sure the architecture isn't that great, but the urban design is. it also is a comfortable city with a midwestern feel, while offering all the amenities you would expect from the 3rd largest city in the country. i enjoy walking chicago more than new york, it isn't as crowded, it is easier to get around, and it hasn't been hollywood-ized to death like new york. of course, i prefer cincinnati, but chicago is my large american city of choice
Every member of my family but me lived in Chicago and I spent every holiday, wedding, funeral and whatever there visiting. I could live in Chicago easily. But, as said by others, Cincinnati is more affordable and has milder winters. But Chicago is a great, livable city.
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