Something's telling me Chicago... (Atlanta, Ohio: to rent, buying, living)

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Alacran

Real life people don't really care.
It's just urban nerds

If anything I'd say it's the opposite. Most "urban nerds" (who are apparently fake people?) don't care because they're transplants with no historical dog in the fight. It's pretty deeply imbedded with some of the old-school locals, though.

And I would say the strong denial of it exhibited by you and so many others is further proof of its existence. If it didn't exist, you wouldn't care about it. You doth protest too much.

[Alacran]

Urban nerds on this site.

People in the street wouldn't care.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Alacran

Urban nerds on this site.

People in the street wouldn't care.

So people care when they're posting on the internet, but stop caring when they walk out of their apartments into the street?

What happens if they're logged into this site from their phones while they're in the street? The pain of deciding whether to care or not must be excruciating!

Or maybe some people care and some people don't, kinda like I said in the very beginning. There's always that possibility, too.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by ja1myn

Is it common to not have a car in Chicago? Do most people prefer to drive instead of taking public transportation?

It is quite common not to have a car in Chicago. Public Transportation is good here especially within the city. Parking can be at a premium, so if you can manage without a car, that is a good idea.

OTOH, if you need to get to the suburbs frequently, you might want a car.

[ja1myn]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

This is true for the most part, and there's not the weird regional hate here like the OP may have experienced for "Yankees" in Georgia. That being said, if there is any place that some Chicagoans have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about, it's New York. I guess it's because of the whole "Second City" thing, though we have technically been the third city for a long time now. At any rate, I would tell any NYer moving here to be careful to avoid making comparisons between NYC and Chicago, particularly with any kind of tone about NY being better than Chi. As long as you don't go around doing that regularly, though, you should be fine.

Sounds good. I'm not a really a city nerd like a lot of people are on this forum. I don't really look at statistics and crap like that; I like to get the perspectives of the people that actually live there. I've lived in many places in NY that people called dangerous, but there have been very few times in my life where I've felt threatened.

And yeah, a big reason why I want to leave the South ASAP is because everywhere I go, people hear my accent or find out that I'm from NY some other way and constantly bring it up. And I mean EVERYONE. I met a girl and started dating her and when I met her mom, she couldn't believe that her daughter was dating someone from New York and she was actually really depressed by it which, in my mind, is so dumb and ignorant. Only recently has her mother come around to actually like me.

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I'd say it's probably about halfway between NYC and Atlanta in terms of car culture vs. public transit culture, if that makes sense, with maybe a slight lean toward the NYC end of the spectrum. It's fairly common for young professional types like yourself in the city to not have cars, especially for people who work downtown and live either downtown or near an el stop. Train access to the whole city isn't nearly as comprehensive here as in NYC, though. Buses can be, but they can also be slow and irregular.

If you don't have a car you may want a Zip Car membership and/or to just plan on spending a couple hundred a month on cabs if you go out regularly to a variety of places. (This shouldn't be a problem for you, because your rent won't be anywhere near $2500 unless it's really important for you to go absolutely all-out in the swanky pad department, so you'll be saving there.) That's probably what I would do if I worked someplace easily accessible from the el.

Yeah I prefer cabs if I can't hop on a train real quick. The thing I hate about Atlanta is that the MARTA stations are too spread out and only cover a certain distance. The buses are also slow which is irritating and inconvenient.

Originally Posted by It'sAutomatic

It's common but not a requirement. I view it as a luxury. With your line of work, I imagine you'll be commuting downtown, where using a car is more of a liability than a convenience. A lot of people take transit everywhere and live great. I ride a bike because it's the easiest way to get around: no traffic, no parking, and no gasoline (all three can suck pretty bad sometimes), and it's faster than CTA trains. It helps that I'm in an area within a few miles of many things to do as well as downtown.

It's a myth that Chicagoans have some sort of rivalry with New York. Outside of sports, I don't know anyone here who gives much thought even to other regional cities (Milwaukee, Indianapolis, St. Louis), let alone places thousands of miles away.

I feel like adding: public transit isn't amazing here, but I think actual travel times are pretty comparable to NYC. That's because Chicago is smaller. You might have to take a bus and you might have to wait 10-15 minutes for a connection, as opposed to NYC where you barely have to wait 5 minutes for a train, but making some trip like going from downtown to the UWS is going a HUGE distance (compared to what I'm used to), and thus it takes a long a$$ time anyway.

Thanks for the info. I like to bike as well when I'm not walking, so that's definitely good that Chicago is bike-friendly.

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

Seriously? Are you sure you live here? Or read this forum? It's very common for Chicagoans to compare our city with New York. (Usually it's along the lines of "We have almost everything they do, but we're more affordable and more friendly," or something like that.) A big part of our city's identity within the nation is how we compare to New York. What do you think the label "Second City," which is still common, refers to? Who do you think we consider ourselves to be second to? It ain't Detroit.

You're technically right that it's not a rivalry, because rivalries go both ways, and people in NY don't give "flyover country" much thought. It's more of a chip-on-shoulder thing. Note that I said it's some Chicagoans. It's not overwhelming or pervasive, but it's certainly not a myth.

Yeah I never even knew where Chicago was on a map until my cousins from Indiana told me how fun it was for them (they're from Ohio, so they've never experienced NY so they wouldn't know what "fun" is).

Hahaha I'm just kidding.

[HarmanFox]

Public transportation is very limited the further from the loop one goes. Mt.Greenwood only has a few bus lines for instance.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by ja1myn

The thing I hate about Atlanta is that the MARTA stations are too spread out and only cover a certain distance.

Yeah, our el (CTA) trains cover much more than MARTA, but not nearly as much as the New York subway. The main problem with the el is that it's designed to link various areas of the city to the Loop downtown. If you want to get from one non-downtown area to another non-downtown area via public transit you have to either take a train downtown to transfer to another train, or take a bus. If you work downtown, however, and live along one of the train lines, and do most of your going out in your neighborhood or along that same train line (Blue, brown, and red are most popular for this), it's pretty perfect, until you make friends who live along a different train line.

Originally Posted by ja1myn

Yeah I never even knew where Chicago was on a map until my cousins from Indiana told me how fun it was for them (they're from Ohio, so they've never experienced NY so they wouldn't know what "fun" is).

Hahaha I'm just kidding.

If you dish out good-natured ribbing like that and don't mind taking it right back, you'll be fine. By the way, how are your cousins from Indiana from Ohio?

Your accent might stick out slightly here, but not nearly as much as a Georgian's would.

[ja1myn]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

If you dish out good-natured ribbing like that and don't mind taking it right back, you'll be fine.

Your accent might stick out slightly here, but not nearly as much as a Georgian's would.

Like I said, I'm not really a city freak and I don't think that New York is paradise by any means, so I think I'll be good.

Yeah my accent is very Italian NYish and I've been told that it sounds whiny and loud to people here in Georgia. But holy crap I'd rather sound whiny and loud versus having the thick southern accent people have here.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by HarmanFox

Public transportation is very limited the further from the loop one goes. Mt.Greenwood only has a few bus lines for instance.

Mount Greenwood is on the very fringes of the city. It's closer to the burbs than to most city neighborhoods. Unless you plan to live on the fringes, you are unlikely to need a car. In fact, even on the fringes some neighborhoods especially along the train lines are quite well served.

[Alacran]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

So people care when they're posting on the internet, but stop caring when they walk out of their apartments into the street?

What happens if they're logged into this site from their phones while they're in the street? The pain of deciding whether to care or not must be excruciating!

Or maybe some people care and some people don't, kinda like I said in the very beginning. There's always that possibility, too.

If you log in to this site you are hear because of urban issues most likely.

If you don't. Which is like 99% of the rest of humanity. You probably don't care.