Cities (large) most similar to Chicago (Manhattan, Vienna: houses, neighborhoods, school)

[Glamrockerfs]

What Cities are most similar (in feel/attitude) to Chicago in the different regions

On the East Coast I find Philidelphia most similar and perhaps the most similar overall is our neighbor to the north Milwaukee it just looks like an extension of Chicago

[Tex?Il?]

Theres been several posts on this already. Just do a search.

[Lookout Kid]

Brooklyn. It feels warmly familiar when I'm there.

[The Mayor of Mil-Town]

Originally Posted by Glamrockerfs

What Cities are most similar (in feel/attitude) to Chicago in the different regions

On the East Coast I find Philidelphia most similar and perhaps the most similar overall is our neighbor to the north Milwaukee it just looks like an extension of Chicago

I would have to agree with Lookout Kid. Brooklyn has a similar feel to Chicago. I've lived in Milwaukee for a long time and also in Chicago (Rogers Park) at one time. Those two cities are very different up close.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by izzy stradlin

Even though it's only about 2 hours away, Milwaukee is almost nothing like Chicago in look or feel...and especially not attitude. Milwaukee is alot sleepier, darker, and more laid back-- almost feeling like a small town in many ways (not that that's bad) Housing stock in Milwaukee is almost completely different from Chicago. Outside of its modest downtown Milwaukee has more of a Green Bay feel than Chicago. Milwaukee is way more of a blue collar town and looks like an extension of Cleveland (weird street art,stuck in the 80s) mixed with a little Portland (beer culture, weirdos) You will see a couple lonely Vienna beef stands in Milwaukee, and they will be empty, because adults in Milwaukee are educated as to what a hotdog consists of.

Hilarious! I did a stint in Milwaukee, and know exactly what street art he is talking about.

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

I think many rust belt cities are like Chicago to varying degrees. Philly too and brooklyn. But nothing is really set in stone. Its not like San Diego which is LA lite, or Seattle which is SF lite. It really has its own thing going on.

[edsg25]

In the way that we have a major downtown which serves as a magnet and the city neighbors around it that relate to it and feed off its energy, I'd say that a Chicago-San Francisco comparison is quite appropriate.

No center cities in the US compare to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, although Boston comes in an admirable 4th place.

Those three cores....downtown and midtown Manhattan, Chicago's super Loop downtown (perhaps defined by the proposed route of the Circle line), and San Francisco's expanding core which is being pumped with energy south of Market to go along what has always been north of Market....are in a class by themselves, the Emerald cities in the heart of Oz.

New York is unique in how it has two core areas and how Manhattan itself generates a special feel even outside the downtown and Midtown towers.

Chicago and San Francisco are single cores in cities not broken down into boroughs like New York or the topagraphy dictated areas of basin, valley, and harbor that define LA.

Unlike New York and LA, all of Chicago comes across as Chicago and all of San Francisco comes across as San Francisco. And while Chicago far exceeds San Francisco in population, the metro area closest in size to Chicagoland is the Bay Area.

So, yes, I see enormous comparisons between the City by the Bay and the City on the Lake

[Lookout Kid]

My Brooklyn comments apply to the parts of Chicago away from downtown, obviously. Chicago's downtown area (including the Loop, Mag Mile, parts of River North and Streeterville, etc.) is actually quite unique in the United States. It does evoke Manhattan more than other downtowns, but it really has it's own character and architecture--particularly in the southern part of the Loop where many late 19th Century "Chicago School" buildings still exist in significant clusters. New York's 19th and early 20th Century high-rises are really very different, and not nearly as innovative (but of course, New York has since trumped Chicago a dozen times over as an architectural capital).

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by edsg25

In the way that we have a major downtown which serves as a magnet and the city neighbors around it that relate to it and feed off its energy, I'd say that a Chicago-San Francisco comparison is quite appropriate.

No center cities in the US compare to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, although Boston comes in an admirable 4th place.

When times are good, it's easier to see the comparison of Chicago to cities of this caliber. From the late 90s through 2005, you could really feel the energy buzzing in Chicago--and there was a tremendous sense of optimism. But when the economy is in the dumps and winter is just starting to set in, people get negative and tend to compare Chicago to the "rust belt". Why? Because Chicago is a bi-polar city with one foot in the vibrant "creative class" San Francisco camp and one foot in the post-industrial Cleveland and Pittsburgh rust belt. People forget that New York, San Francisco, and Boston once had larger working-class populations, higher crime, and more significant urban decay. Heck, Seattle was seen as a dying lumber town in the 1970s (remember the phrase "Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn off the lights?"). Perceptions can change over time.

[Tex?Il?]

Although I've haven't been to NYC (one of these days) but from what I've seen on streetview, I'd say the majority of Chicago looks more like Queens. Most neighborhoods are dominated by a single family hosues (on small, narrow lots) and two-three unit flat buildings. (still detached. We hardly have any true rowhouses (like in Brooklyn and most other east coast cities).