My love/hate relationship with Chicago...

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

^^^^Sounds like some one is trying real hard to convince themselves they are happy where they wound up.

You remind me of a buddy I knew in college. After graduation I went into the service and he moved to SF. He couldn't stop talking about how much better this and that was and how he had found himself and how happy he was and blah blah.

He moved back to his mother and father's in lombard.

[At1WithNature]

My love-hate relationship with Chicago has more to do with a Global or larger impact. I look at it, and judge it, from a bird's eye view. The Chicago area is what I know, it's where I have been for all my life, it has everything you could ever want from a city. It has all the good and all the bad. It has a large economic, cultural, and communicative impact...more like Ginormous! It's just that something is missing. I've been to a lot of other cities that had more electricity in the air. It's like something is missing in chicago. I see Chicagoans walking down the streets looking for something to pop off. Something that is missing. That's why I do not think Chicago is where "It's" at. It's a great, top notch city. But it is missing something...maybe 2016 will be the final piece to the puzzle.

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

Chicago is where it is at. It's just the coasts are over hyped.

NYC is its own monster I'll give it that, and LA (the parts that don't resemble mexico)is cool, but there really is not much difference I think, save how seriously people take themselves.

I want to quote author stuart dybeck because I feel what he says best sums my feelings for the city:

"It isn't theme that stamps chicago writing so much as outlook. It's an outlook from the perspective of the country's third coast, a sweet water inland sea surrounded by prairie, a locus at the center of America, where there's not much patience with fads or pretension. It's an outlook in which energy is valued over elegance, instinct over fashionable theories, and street smarts over the academic; an outlook we used to call 'having a scan' in my neighborhood, and that Ernest Hemmingway, that kid from Oak Park, called the need for a good crap detector.

Chicago writers are constantly aware that the individual confronts a currupt system, there is as much a fascination with outsiders, underdogs, heroic and anti heroic losers, as there is with success. No wonder it's a town that has not only endured the cubs, but loved them

Finally at the core of the Chicago tradition there is an insistence on sentiment. Not sentimentality, but on the basic emotion, the complex mix of passion and empathy we term the human heart. How does sentiment survive not only the world, but the toughness required to live in it; to what limits can the individual be driven and still rise up human? These are the questions posed by Chicago writers over and over, the same questions posed and answerd by the BLUES. Its an allegiance to the heart that seems only natural coming as it does from the HEART OF THE COUNTRY."

- stuart dybek "Chicago stories"


God I love this mother ******* town.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by HCC

...A colleague, who lived in E Lakeview, thought North/Clybourn was a scary, run down, ghetto area.

It was until fairly recent years.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by HCC

To everyone else...it was my experience in the 5 years I lived in Chicago that many people were not familiar with areas even just blocks from where they lived.

As evidenced by your apparent inability to locate any type of culture or nightlife besides sports bars.

Originally Posted by HCC

A colleague, who lived in E Lakeview, thought North/Clybourn was a scary, run down, ghetto area.

Maybe that's because until very recently it was, which you might have known if you were familiar with more than your immediate surroundings or had any awareness of recent events in the city.

[confessorfeliciano1]

Sorry I don't feel the same! Two years ago I came to Chicago to better myself, and look for a job in my degree, I found squat!!! I couldn't grow in that city, the weather sucks, the atmosphere is depressing, the public transportation is horrendous, I just had so many bad memories of Chicago that everytime I think of that city its like I lived a nightmare. There was only one thing that I got by moving there is that I met my wife, and once I saved enough money I moved out of that city as soon as I could. I just have very oppressed memories by the city that never gave me the chance to prove myself. >

[dewthedru]

i'm guessing your degree isn't in english lit

[emathias]

Originally Posted by confessorfeliciano1

...
I just have very oppressed memories by the city that never gave me the chance to prove myself. >

A good workman never blames his tools.

If no one was ever able to "make it" in Chicago, you might have a point blaming "the city" for your failures. But, seeing as that's not the case, I think you need to refocus the target of your frustration.

[Chicago South Sider]

Originally Posted by LakeShoreSoxGo

Chicago is where it is at. It's just the coasts are over hyped.

NYC is its own monster I'll give it that, and LA (the parts that don't resemble mexico)is cool, but there really is not much difference I think, save how seriously people take themselves.

I want to quote author stuart dybeck because I feel what he says best sums my feelings for the city:

"It isn't theme that stamps chicago writing so much as outlook. It's an outlook from the perspective of the country's third coast, a sweet water inland sea surrounded by prairie, a locus at the center of America, where there's not much patience with fads or pretension. It's an outlook in which energy is valued over elegance, instinct over fashionable theories, and street smarts over the academic; an outlook we used to call 'having a scan' in my neighborhood, and that Ernest Hemmingway, that kid from Oak Park, called the need for a good crap detector.

Chicago writers are constantly aware that the individual confronts a currupt system, there is as much a fascination with outsiders, underdogs, heroic and anti heroic losers, as there is with success. No wonder it's a town that has not only endured the cubs, but loved them

Finally at the core of the Chicago tradition there is an insistence on sentiment. Not sentimentality, but on the basic emotion, the complex mix of passion and empathy we term the human heart. How does sentiment survive not only the world, but the toughness required to live in it; to what limits can the individual be driven and still rise up human? These are the questions posed by Chicago writers over and over, the same questions posed and answerd by the BLUES. Its an allegiance to the heart that seems only natural coming as it does from the HEART OF THE COUNTRY."

- stuart dybek "Chicago stories"


God I love this mother ******* town.

You're a lot more passionate about this place than I am. Chicago is ok at best.

[nana053]

Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.

Studs Terkel