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Chicago has no rivals in the Midwest, that much is pretty much clear. No other city can measure up to its bigness, prosperity, economy, and infrastructure. If you want to speak rivals, I'll give you Chicago's rivals...New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta and maybe even Miami. It takes a big city to be a rival to a big city. St. Louis and Chicago are historic rivals, but nowadays besides sports there isn't much St. Louis can offer in the way of competition to Chicago.
New York, Boston, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Philadelphia and Seattle could be, but are not. Detroit tried years ago, never succeeded and probably never will. Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, St Louis, etc all wish they were Chicago, although Kansas City sleeps peacefully at night, unlike the others, especially Detroit, which needs a unisom (NyQuil is not enough).
Not that it matters (6 months later, like you'll see this), Indianapolis does not wish it was Chicago. Indy wishes to be Indy, no matter how many times people from outside of Indy tell us we want to be like Chicago/Ohio/etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Billiam
i love Chicago, but so many Chicagans are so...just like this poster "We're the Best!!!!!" sigh
i wonder what kind of backlash im going to get for saying this...
No backlash from me (not that it matters, I am not significant). It amuses me when people from Chicago tell me I should be envious of Chicago. I am not. Oh well.
And L.A., and Dallas, and Houston, and Seattle, and....
You really believe that? I'm sure there are lots of people from those cities who enjoy them, like myself... but I don't see many people from those cities acting condescendingly towards people from other cities. There's always going to be one or two bad eggs, but I'm talking about the general sentiment. And don't you roll your eyes at me boy!
I guess it depends on what the "rivalry" is for: global city, finance, sports, culture, etc.
Twenty years ago I would have said Chicago's main "rivals" (bencharks? peers?) were New York, Los Angeles and to some extent Boston, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and San Francisco.
On the whole, in 2008, I think Chicago now honestly sees its main rivals as New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong (I don't think it's in this pantheon yet). To a lesser extent, cities such as Los Angeles, Toronto, Frankfurt, etc.
I think a rivalry is aspiration-based, meaning, most rivalries are forward-looking. I don't think Chicago sees itself as inward-looking as in previous decades (meaning prior to '90s). Its economy has evolved and is more service-oriented and tourism-centric (at least moreso now), with much less dependence on manufactuing. As such-- a professional service economy is inherently global,-- I think Chicago's attitude of itself is now more measured by how it stacks up globally against othe true global cities. So, from the criteria above-- I'm speaking of a rivalry based on economic global impact.
Some things that have driven this view of Chicago as a global city:
CBOT -- global leadership in futures/commodities
Olympic candidate
Fortune 500 locale for major cos.
Millennium Park (yup)
Professional service economy evolution
High-profile construction (Trump, Spire, remainder of late 90s and 00s building boom)
Obama (real or perceived)
Recent detractors
CTA
crime
Last edited by BigLake; 06-27-2008 at 03:54 PM..
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