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The crime is high people are leaving even black people. I guess that would be called black flight. High unemployment, high crime. Houston has its own vibe and isn't trying to copy another city. Chicago will always try to be NYC and fall way short. NYC has 8.4 million people in 300 square miles.. The entire chicago metro area needs 9000 square miles to reach 8.4 million. No comparison at all.
Houston's unemployment rate is below 5% but what is the vibe you get from Houston? Chicago can't be that bad if it were why would so many people still be in the metro?
You are so clueless it's not even funny. I can't believe you would honestly think that most people in the city are townies. 20-25% of the population of the city wasn't even born in the US. I have exactly 2 friends here that actually grew up anywhere in the area. Off the top of my head - I have friends from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, UK (England), Sweden, Australia, Italy, Moldova, Belarus, Bulgaria, Colombia, Spain, Portugal, Malaysia, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Others from the US include ones from San Diego, Los Angeles, NYC, Miami, Cincinnati, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, DC, Atlanta, etc. I'm forgetting a few but that's off the top of my head. Almost none of my friends grew up even in the midwest. To think that everybody that lives in Chiacgo has ties to the area and are just there because they're stuck there is so stupid it's not even funny.
You know almost all of the white and black people have been in that area for generations. Sure, the Asians and Hispanics are new arrivals but the other groups, particularly the white people, have family ties going back to the 19th century. Chicago is a net exporter of white and black people. Even the metro area would be in decline without the Asian and Hispanic immigrants.
You do realize that as a Chicago-basher...your ignorance actually argues in favor of Chicago...keep it up.
Escape from those heat waves is precisely why immigrants from Europe didn't come to the Deep South much until after A/C was invented. Places like Atlanta get heat waves like that almost every summer and without cooling A/C systems people would die in large numbers from the heat.
Now that A/C is here there is no point in living in a place like Chicago.
MPLS_TC
You obviously do not have enough real experience with or understanding of Chicago to understand that it is it's own thing. There is only 1 Chicago. It's a muscular powerhouse of a city.
Houston will never be it or duplicate that exact Chicago feeling because Houston will be doing it's own unique thing.
As for New York, every large city tries to measure up to or beat it in some way. In many ways LA has the same complex towards NYC that Chicago has.
Los Angeles wasn't always dense and now it's denser than Chicago. There are areas of LA that are uninhabitable so the density of LA is higher than the statistics suggest. Chicago's population At 227 square miles is less than la's urban core at 227 square miles. Houston can get much denser and shows no signs of slowing. Eventually Houston's metro will pass Chicagoland in population and sooner than people think. If a small metro like Minneapolis is gaining more people than Chicago than good luck competing with Houston
Maybe in 50+ years, assuming growth rates stay exactly the same, which is a ridiculous premise to begin with. Chicago's metro is in no danger from any city in Texas.
Not sure about delivered this year, but the next few years should see over 5000 new units delivered, and the last few years saw a few thousand themselves. I follow this stuff very closely and there is a decent amount going on. If you followed development news, you'd realize this has been written about numerous times over the last year.
Here's a current list of housing currently under construction downtown (Gold Coast, River North, Loop, Streeterville, West Loop, and South Loop) and the number of units:
* Wolf Point West Tower - 507 units
* 111 W Wacker - 504 units
* Clark & Polk (AMLI) - 398 units
* State & Chestnut - 367 units
* Arkadia Tower - 350 units
* Summit on Lake - 332 units
* Chicago & La Salle - 295 units
* Catalyst - 221 units
* Madison & Racine - 216 units
* 601 W Jackson - 198 units
* 212 W Illinois - 188 units
* 20 E Jackson - 160 units (conversion)
* 1345 S Wabash - 144 units
* 922 W Washington - 104 units
* 211 W Scott - 71 units
* 727 W Lake - 61 units (affordable housing)
* TOTAL = 4116 units
Here's a list of recently completed projects:
* Coast at Lakeshore East - 515 units
* 500 N Lake Shore Drive - 500 units
* K2 - 496 units
* Hubbard Place - 450 units
* AMLI River North - 409 units
* Optima Center = 325 Units
* TOTAL = 2695 units
A good amount more on board too. A few community meetings recently put some things in motion for a few 40+ story residential towers in River North that should start construction Q1 of 2015.
Again, none of this is true. We have actual Census stats, recorded from the city department of buildings. It doesn't matter what the media reports, it's what the city actually permits.
And Chicago, relative to other U.S. cities, is not building a lot of housing. It is a relative housing construction laggard compared to the top U.S. cities, at least now. 5-10 years ago it was building a lot of housing, but not now.
The crime is high people are leaving even black people. I guess that would be called black flight. High unemployment, high crime. Houston has its own vibe and isn't trying to copy another city. Chicago will always try to be NYC and fall way short. NYC has 8.4 million people in 300 square miles.. The entire chicago metro area needs 9000 square miles to reach 8.4 million. No comparison at all.
Just like there's no comparison of Chicago with Houston, even though Texans are surely trying hard to make that connection.
I don't think that is the case. Chicago was settled heavily in an area safe from oppressive heat back in a time before A/C. Today a lot of those people's descendents are stuck there due to jobs or family ties. Many would leave if they had the ability to do so.
Or perhaps people just like where they live? You're terribly presumptuous and seem to have a lot of trouble with projecting your own preferences on others.
Escape from those heat waves is precisely why immigrants from Europe didn't come to the Deep South much until after A/C was invented. Places like Atlanta get heat waves like that almost every summer and without cooling A/C systems people would die in large numbers from the heat.
Now that A/C is here there is no point in living in a place like Chicago.
Thanks for at least admitting that the weather in the South can and does suck every bit as much as the rest of the nation, opposite the idea Southerners and recent transplants have been selling for many years now.
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but what is the vibe you get from Houston? Chicago can't be that bad if it were why would so many people still be in the metro?
