Does Chicago feel like the third largest city? (Oakland: place to live, rating)

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Sadly there are actually people who believe Chicago is represented by the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.

This same group of people are also the people who whisk around in packs on the segway's.

Not sure what the third largest city is supposed to feel like.

Can you tell 50k people left in the last decade ? NO
If one actually wants to visualize and feel the size of Chicago then go climb the willis tower at night and take a good hard look.

Does size equal greatness? NO

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by sunnyandcloudydays

Sadly there are actually people who believe Chicago is represented by the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.

This same group of people are also the people who whisk around in packs on the segway's.

Not sure what the third largest city is supposed to feel like.

Can you tell 50k people left in the last decade ? NO
If one actually wants to visualize and feel the size of Chicago then go climb the willis tower at night and take a good hard look.

Does size equal greatness? NO

hard to build onto an excellent post, but i will try.

it's an argument i've used here before: our city is the Baby (Chicago Bear of cities. Remember? Of the 3 bears, this one was "not too this" and "not too that" but just right.

and we are.

like New York and Los Angeles, we have the critical mass to offer the full range of urban delights. like San Francisco and Boston, we have a scale that makes us operate in an optimim way.

Look at Millennium Park, our magnificent present to ourselves at the turn of the new millennium. New York and LA are too big, too difficult to pull it off, so diverse and far flung that they wouldn't and couldn't pour energy into creating a gathering point to build anything like it. And cities smaller than Chicago don't have the critical mass and power to pull it off.

What is sunny seeing that others are missing in their assessment of Chicago? Well, for one, he is looking directly at the city, not thinking about or comparing it to other places, and what he sees is a city that looks, feels, and is the world class city he identifies. From my perspective, it would be virtually impossible to visit Chicago for any length of time and not come across thinking the same thing (unlike the naysayers here), I have had friends and family from across the country....and some from outside of it.....who have been blown away by the Windy City and its charms.

but there is something else about sunny that seems to be working just fine here. He seems like the type of guy who doesn't buy into that insane, convoluted, almost uniquely american concept that big=better, that constant growth and being at the head of the class in the population pecking order is important (although the only thing that grows without control is cancer...and it kills its host).

I suspect that if you offered sunny a Chicago of 10 million within a Chicagoland of 30, he'd say "hell, no".

As for others, if you want to live in an urban growth machine and are tired of poor ol' Chicago rusting away in the Rust Belt, why not consider moving to the charms and magnetism of Houston.

"Does Chicago feel like the third largest city" My answer: WTF;.frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn.

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I suppose much depends on what sort of "range" you have in Chicago and the other cities. I have spent some time in Philly and it is tiny -- literally by the time you get as far from downtown as maybe Linclon Park you are into the "mainline" suburbs, and by the time you drive as far as maybe Evanston you are in New Jersey....

Wow. Homers gonna home. Lincoln Park is 3.5 miles from the center of Chicago. 3.5 miles towards the main line from the center of Philly puts you right in the center of West Philly, where it is as urban as any part of Chicago.

Philly is 60% the size of Chicago in area, city population, and metro population (65% as big). So it must not be *that tiny.

[TBideon]

A response eight years in the making!

[TheTimidBlueBars]

My mom visited me in Seattle and said, to her, it felt as big as Chicago does.

[Chicago_Person]

Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars

My mom visited me in Seattle and said, to her, it felt as big as Chicago does.

Yeah. I've been to Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, SD.

You can roam around any slice of any city and it can feel like a city.

The "big" part comes when you start trying to go to different neighborhoods and realize that the density and people don't end.

IN western cities there's usually hills and mountains that stop development. There's gaps between cities and neighborhoods.

so you travel 20 miles out and there's still development, but there was gaps inbetween.

Here in Chicago 20 miles.. 30 miles... even up to 40 there is non stop development. That's another type of big

[atler8]

Originally Posted by OhAcid

Far from the truth. The Loop is not the center of activity in Chicago outside "business hours" - but it's also not a ghost town after 5 p.m. either. I think the biggest misconception about Chicago (concerning non-residents) is that everything has to, must be, and can only function if it's centered right downtown in the core of everything and any part of Chicago outside of the Loop isn't worth recognizing since it's not dominated by skyscrapers. On top of that, the use of the words "lackluster" and "mediocre" to describe The Loop is enough to keep me laughing for hours, since the area is home to some of the most profound, diverse and spectacular architecture in the world on top of it being adjacent to the coast of Lake Michigan. If anything, the fact that nightlife and urban activity are not concentrated in The Loop is one of the things that makes the city feel like such an urban area - very few cities can boast about such vibrant activity occurring in multiple areas. So as nice as Santana Row is, it could probably be on the same level as Michigan Avenue if it had a few interesting things to look at, iconic history, and more than 1/10 of the shopping and entertainment afforded by Michigan Avenue.

Of course, I could see why that's unimpressive to someone who enjoys the overly suburban appeal of the 27 story cap on San Jose's riveting skyline that could give Evanston a run for its money.

A well said response to a post, the content & tone of which I won't even dignify with a response!

[personone]

Of course. Even though this thread is old. KoNgFooCj seems interested in resurrecting old threads of Chicago on topics like this. But, Chicago absolutely feels like the 3rd largest cities. Massive downtown. The Loop is only one part of downtown.

River North, West Loop, and much of the Gold Coast (including a small slice of Old Town) are part of downtown. These are the more "social" downtown sections where you find lots of nightlife, dining, shopping, etc. I agree that most of the Loop can clear out at after business hours, but the other downtown neighborhoods are live and bustling. Then add onto that the endless numbers of neighborhoods (many of them almost setup as mini-cities with their own shopping/dining/nightlife spots) on the North Side, West Side, and South Side, and Chicago absolutely feels like the 3rd largest city!!!

But NYC feels larger. LA also feels much larger because of how spread out it is.

[Javawood]

Chicago feels like the 2nd largest. My issue to this day with LA in terms of size is that it's exemplary in feeling like a collective of high/medium density suburbs that decided to incorporate into a city. You can even see it in the density comparisons between cities. I wish it had better train transit to connect it's multiple cores, as that might allow it to grow like Tokyo.

[raleightransplant]

Feels 2nd largest to me. Los Angeles feels like a huge sprawling region, but Chicago city in particular is absolutely massive and feels much larger to me. I was in LA about 2 years ago. I really like LA, but I'd never compare it to a Chicago either downtown or in the neighborhoods either for that matter in terms of density or intensity. Chicago is the only place I've spent time in the US that doesn't seem to be absolutely dwarfed by NYC. It is smaller but truly holds it's own, and the built environment---even well out in to the neighborhoods---is dense and quite substantial. It's an impressive place, and it might be the most beautiful built environment in the US. I also am very bullish on Chicago over the long run. I can envision a world (maybe sooner than later) when people have started to chew up and spit out the Houston's and Miami's and of the world (remember cities like that will be old hat/old news too in time--with the problems that come with it) and see the city getting kind of 'rediscovered'. Sitting on 30% of the world's freshwater won't hurt either. Chicago has always been very ambitious. If you start righting some wrongs in these areas that have lacked investment on the south and west sides over the decades...look out world. Disinvestment and inequality coming home to roost is basically what has happened parts of Chicago that have lost population. Functioning areas of Chicago are stable to booming right now.