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I agree with your post but the truth is Chicago is treated very differently in media and by national politicians. When New York was extremely violent with over 2,000 homicides annually and mass scale blight it somehow remained "the greatest city in the world" being a global destination for business, tourism and people looking to "make it" in every walk of life etc. It was portrayed as a badge of honor to be from a city with so much grit and craziness. Surviving the subway, Times Square or a walk in Central Park was stereotypical comedic fodder. Broadway certainly never lost any acclaim being in such close proximity to homicides, drugs, hookers and porn shops. Fashion shoots and music videos for example would juxtapose "beauty" against bombed out buildings or graffiti filled train cars.
L.A. with its gang culture and extreme violence was essentially treated the same thing.
Yet Chicago is portrayed as a war-zone without any redeeming qualities ever being mentioned and homicides are actually down from historic highs. Nobody was running weekend totals for any city other than Chicago. I never saw shootings incidents that didn't result in homicides printed. New York was probably having over 200 shootings on some weekends. This is politically charged now with right-wing media using Chicago as the lone example of a failed Democrat run city and the best case for why gun-control doesn't work is an angle that was never used against NY and LA. No American President ever attacked a city relentlessly for 4 years which had major sway in the public perception for a large percentage of the country. This is after 8 years of the Obama Administration where Chicago was portrayed negatively almost nightly. Had Obama been from Philadelphia we would be thinking that it was a third world war-zone from the media coverage.
I read an article from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs which stated how Chicago is an elite educational center of the world with some of the finest universities, research facilities, and highly rated programs for arts, music, ballet etc. yet almost nobody views the city as having any academic opportunity around the world. Much of this is a failure on behalf of the city to properly control messaging and marketing but mainly this shows the inherent coastal bias in the media. San Francisco is inextricably linked with Stanford and Berkeley even though they aren't in the city proper but perception makes them synonymous. Chicago has two Ivy level schools with amazing urban campuses and it may as well be a secret by comparison.
Chicago residents could begin with speaking to the qualities of our city as a start rather than entertaining the obligatory Chiraq questions. By the way LA and NY have had untold amounts of films equivalent to "Chiraq" portraying their rampant violence yet none of these stories caused irreparable harm or deterred one visitor or potential resident from moving there. Many of those movies that depicted utter despair and turmoil are classics. This is an impossible standard for Chicago. Nobody was reporting in 2019 that Chicago was down 1600 shootings and almost 300 homicides from 2016. At least not with anywhere near the same intensity used to denigrate it.
I agree with your post. It's obvious the media has had an agenda since Obama was President but their negative reporting was exacerbated during 45's tenure. Chicago has to do a better job of balancing all of bad stories by promoting its great attributes through advertising (story-telling) all over the world.
Ironwright, you may be correct on Chicago being an innovator of "Quantum Computing", I admit I had to do some reading to even understand the concept, it's some real Schrodinger's Cat stuff. But it's a real "if", and to be honest, the only jobs it will produce will be for guys with 150-plus IQ's, when Chicago's real problem exists for its citizens with sub-100 IQ's, i.e., the "regular" folks.
Take the Nabisco factory on 71st and Kedzie. At its height in the 70's, it employed what, over 4000 people? You could smell it at my home (miles away) when the wind was right. Today, it is owned by Mondelez International, and there are only hundreds working there (if any, my data was from a few years ago). Now, Chicago eats a lot of cookies and other baked goods. What good is it doing us to eat cookies made in Mexico, and have thousands here out of work? Even if Mexican-made cookies are cheaper, how much cheaper can they really be? We'd be better off subsidizing the cost of Chicago-made cookies, because we are sure subsidizing all the regular folks that are out of work, via welfare and criminal justice costs. Because when someone worked a full shift at Nabisco, they were too tired to go out and party (at least, for long) when they got home, I worked at the nearby Kool Aid factory (73rd and Rockwell) in the late 70's, and it wore you out. But it also gave people something they don't get sitting at home and typing on their smart phones, maybe even on the new Quantum model - pride of accomplishment. The idea of making stuff as cheaply as possible, has not turned out very well for cities like Chicago. Unemployed people still reproduce, and if there's nothing productive for their kids to do, they'll find something Unproductive, maybe carjacking.
Bottom line, we still consume goods. Buying cheaper goods made "elsewhere" may be less expensive in the short run, but in the long run, not so much. Ask the folks making Explorers on Torrence Avenue whether they would prefer to drive a less-expensive version made in Mexico.
having the most gains in households making six-figure incomes
I do have one question about this. Is it just a statistical artifact of where Chicago's six-figure HHI baseline was in the past several years? I bet places like DC and Silicon Valley have a higher proportion of six-figure households and probably had bigger HHI gains. The recent past might just have been the time when Chicago saw a big gain from five to six figures, which may be psychologically meaningful but is not as important as the absolute HHI gain.
I do have one question about this. Is it just a statistical artifact of where Chicago's six-figure HHI baseline was in the past several years? I bet places like DC and Silicon Valley have a higher proportion of six-figure households and probably had bigger HHI gains. The recent past might just have been the time when Chicago saw a big gain from five to six figures, which may be psychologically meaningful but is not as important as the absolute HHI gain.
I'm not sure of the answer, but it could also depend on how you're defining "Chicago." If limiting to the city itself, I'm guessing the proportion decreases. Chicagoland, has some very wealthy areas, particularly Lake County. So it could be how the region is being sliced/diced in terms of statistical reporting.
When it comes to average wealth of households and even number of high wealth individuals, Chicagoland MSA is always in the top tier. It's usually lower than the Bay Area and a few other places, but it is in the top tier.
Last edited by personone; 02-04-2021 at 03:22 PM..
And until the daily weekend crime numbers (especially during the summer) can be lowered CONSISTENTLY over a LONG PERIOD OF TIME, that negative reputation will persist. And it won't be saved by trying to mention that the "crime RATE is lower than several other cities." The media and public will continue to look at the TOTAL numbers every weekend in the summer, so the "RATE" argument will not be effective in changing the reputation.
Exactly. Unfortunately, perception very much is reality, even if that's not true. People look at and believe headlines and absolute numbers. No amount of explaining will change the audience's mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sf_arkitect
However, I have never understood why people in Chicago want to move to the southeastern US (Nashville, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami). As a region it has never appealed to me because it has worse humidity than the Midwest, more insects, hurricanes, and the regional politics are dominated by evangelical conservatives....NO THANKS!
I guess if someone is super conservative, hates our continental climate, and would rather drive everywhere than use Chicago's extensive bus and rail transit options....then perhaps the southeastern US is better fit for them (?).
Most people don't give a **** about public transit options. Even in Chicago, something like 70% drive vs. take public transit. Other benefits outside of chicago inlcude lower taxes, less crime, less corruption, less bad reputation, less traffic, less winter. these are serious drawbacks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by personone
c) This is a last resort, but if there are going to be gangs, they would be best to be "organized." I wish that no gangs existed at all, but unfortunately they do. However, in many of the Latino neighborhoods (with Latin Kings, others), the crime while bad, is not much worse than what you would find in any other urban neighborhood in the country. This is because it is "organized" for the most part. Usually, you don't just have random people getting shot/killed, and many times families are not harmed. Heck, they infamously made national/international news protecting their neighborhoods from rioters this summer. There is a certain respect for neighborhood and residents (despite the evil they still commit). In other neighborhoods in the South and West side, there is much more "UNorganized" gang violence, and thus, they are the ones that are driving the high numbers that come out of Chicago every weekend. A bigger issue is culture and how kids are raised, which could improve if the neighborhoods became safer and point "b" (see above) could take place.
This is why most people respect the latino neighborhoods in the city as compared to the black neighborhoods.
Most people don't give a **** about public transit options. Even in Chicago, something like 70% drive vs. take public transit. Other benefits outside of chicago inlcude lower taxes, less crime, less corruption, less bad reputation, less traffic, less winter. these are serious drawbacks.
Bus/train ridership is lower than private automobile ridership across all US cities except in NYC.
Anyways, Chicago still has a larger percentage of commuters who ride transit than most other cities in the US. And more importantly, most people do care about the public transit options in the city. Public transit is far cheaper than owning a car and the middle class and working poor in Chicago depend on it (I save hundreds of dollars each month not having to pay for gas, maintenance/repairs, insurance, and parking by taking the L).
The robust rail infrastructure in Chicago facilitated the growth of it's central core and the concentric rings of development at least up to the 1940s. The city would be in a worse state without the L and bus systems, the Metra, or Amtrak.
Lastly, Chicago's reputation could not be any worse than the political efforts of Southern republicans to hinder the voting rights of minorities (especially after 2020), curtail access to abortion procedures/other health services for women, restrict the rights of the LGBT community, and defend monuments idolizing slave owners and Confederate generals.
Last edited by sf_arkitect; 02-04-2021 at 07:00 PM..
:Lastly, Chicago's reputation could not be any worse than the political efforts of Southern republicans to hinder the voting rights of minorities (especially after 2020), curtail access to abortion procedures/other health services for women, restrict the rights of the LGBT community, and defend monuments idolizing slave owners and Confederate generals.
On the other hand, many, many folks down south don't believe in open borders and sanctuary states, want secure and transparent elections, don't believe killing babies is a good "choice", don't believe that the rights of one percent of the population should exceed the one percent of their representative votes, and have respect and pride for their history. There, fixed it for ya.
I have the ability to live almost anywhere I want. And, I'm choosing the area you have so much contempt for, primarily because it ISN'T Chicago, the area where I was born and raised. I plan to tell people in my new city, that "I didn't leave Chicago, Chicago left me".
On the other hand, many, many folks down south don't believe in open borders and sanctuary states, want secure and transparent elections, don't believe killing babies is a good "choice", don't believe that the rights of one percent of the population should exceed the one percent of their representative votes, and have respect and pride for their history. There, fixed it for ya.
I have the ability to live almost anywhere I want. And, I'm choosing the area you have so much contempt for, primarily because it ISN'T Chicago, the area where I was born and raised. I plan to tell people in my new city, that "I didn't leave Chicago, Chicago left me".
We as adults make our own decisions. That includes if we take baggage with us and resentment or..... realizing we like our new life and city. Saying someone has contempt may be to a political extreme climate. But most on both sides are not among the extremist wing of their party. I clearly note that in the area I live. Can let go of that baggage and hold on the the good memories. If young yet especially. Our views may change as we get older and by our differing jobs and life-circumstances, job losses and deaths. A job did for me when I took a blue-collar distribution center job after the crash .... it was a eye opener for me, but not going into that for the time I was there. Changed some of my views and stereotypes of people whom I worked with and I clearly was a Moderate from that day on seeing both sides, yet every election I have to choose one.
Still to go into a rant on killing babies has is not what QAnon or even the Proud Boys are fighting for. If I feel they are truly sincere and even by Religious beliefs.... I give them full respect to claim a view as that. People may choices in life.... even knowing better has nothing to do with it many times at that point in life they are at and make a decision. I came to realize you cannot force morals on people, but it better be with humility and honesty and not by a political stance when some speak it with a forked tongue. You can promote and teach them we all hope and raise children with the great points of success to attain. Yet still no guarantee they will turn out perfect and not fail as is the expectation. Some see I did it and you can and if you do not I BLAME YOU. Especially, when it comes to certain people that get aid and help for failing and cannot help themselves enough as is what we all are called to do. Some believe all should be the fittest, smartest and bravest of society, should win in every stand and overcome their issues. Be perfect stewards of their money and savers and know how to invest to gain wealth. If only all was that perfect for so many people or they learn it later in life far more .... still we would all be Chemist or Doctors or Tech engineers and .....
I would hope we get to some new voting system -- not internet as we know it on the world-wide web.... but some secure government only connected voting system. Still some no doubt will cry it cannot be trusted if they believe the Deep State rules or wrong party.
Chicago will go on. If issues get addressed with even a bankruptcy ect? I only hope it is swift and without cutting all city services NYC had to endure in the 70s till President Ford was pressured by his base and businesses.....to grant NYC loans to get it out of its deep debt-hole and of course go as far down as Detroit including its core.
No matter where one moves..... I would hope that Chicago is still wished the best and to overcome its problems and move forward. If not.... it says a lot of the person and most by a certain age get over their mistakes and blame they gave to a city to other people in life they blamed being true or false in reality as we all made choices probably that lead up to it. It's great to get to that point and what a epiphany that is then for some.... some can find it in religious faith, but certainly not in politics.
No sure how a city can leave us? It is constantly evolving and as anything we may dislike the change we see and effects upon us. Still it is part of life. Luckily we live in a Country we can move 1000s of miles to another region we see the grass greener in or corporate America steers and chooses it for us.
Lastly, Chicago's reputation could not be any worse than the political efforts of Southern republicans to hinder the voting rights of minorities (especially after 2020), curtail access to abortion procedures/other health services for women, restrict the rights of the LGBT community, and defend monuments idolizing slave owners and Confederate generals.
you're comparing "reputation" to "political efforts"?
amusing, but irrelevant..
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Bus/train ridership is lower than private automobile ridership across all US cities except in NYC. 
