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Love East Coast, Dislike Midwest, never been South, Northern West Coast OK, LA area was horrible
Now - here's the deal:
I live in Boston and grew up outside Chicago. I live in Boston for a reason which is that I love it here, almost as much as Cambridge. I would not want to live anywhere else in the US (unless I was extremely wealthy).
My girlfriend lives in Boston. She also grew up in Chicago. Her parents still live there. There is nothing in her mind that could ever be bad about Chicago. Every time she goes there, I hear about the food, how beautiful the city is, how nice the people are, how great the stores are, how there is so much to do, how nice the weather is, how every musician is great from Chicago, the artists and architects are all the best. And then she disses Boston. This wears on me after only a few minutes. In her mind, Boston has no food, no class, is not cosmopolitan, is rude; she even complains about road construction and traffic lights as though they are not handled properly in Boston.
I don't want to argue with her, but I really cannot stand Chicago. To me, Boston is much more alive, more wordly, more friendly, prettier than any other place; and Chicago is dull, midwestern, ugly, and has this kind of self-conscious 'we're as good as the east coast' attitude. Boston is also simply the most liberal place you could live in the USA (with some snobby exceptions).
Some of these things I do not know how to put into definable terms. I can walk around Chicago, and it feels like a big city, but it is nothing like NYC or Boston in terms of the vibe. It is like a hollow structure of a city. In NYC, you get the real feeling of sticky stuff on the bottom of your shoes and people living life to the fullest, which you would expect of Chicago the way that people describe it, but no.
And the architecture. All Chicago architecture looks like something out of Woody Allen's 'sleeper' to me - or else just steel and glass german style 'dentist office' buildings. Almost like soviet style construction without any ornament. I hate it. I love Boston's charm in this regard, the old colonial feel and narrow streets and pretty brick walkways.
Anyway, I'm looking for other input and opinions here. Why do I love Boston so much, and why do I dislike Chicago so much? What are your reasons for loving or hating either?
I really hated LA because it is the worst city for walking that I have ever been to. You simply are required to drive, park, get out, do something, then get back in the car to do something else. No real neighborhoods.
Thanks - anything I can nail my girlfriend with about why Chicago sucks would be great.
(One other funny item I noticed - the rankings that different media do are kind of funny. In the 2008 Travel and Leisure rankings, they have cities ranked by residents and by tourists. Boston came in number one (though this is definitely suspect). What I noticed though was that in almost every category, residents of Boston ranked the city lower than the tourists who went there. But for Chicago, in nearly every category, residents ranked the city higher than the tourists who went there. It's a classic case of people in Chicago thinking their city is so great when people who go there do not agree, at least with as much enthusiasm.)
Why do I love Boston so much, and why do I dislike Chicago so much?
You're asking us why you don't like Chicago? I think you just outlined it above.
City vs city threads are pointless and your post seems more like trolling than anything else. Shock of shocks, people who choose to live here, LIKE it! Imagine that, people living in a city they like. You like Boston more. Congratulations.
Perhaps you like being around arrogant self-centered people who don't know how to drive? Perhaps you are one of those people?
Just kidding, I miss living in Boston even though I enjoy Chicago quite a bit. I think Chicago's got just as much desirable urbanness as Boston, although its diluted by a lot more urban nastiness which Boston mostly avoids. Cambridge is unique, there's no place like it.
Regarding architecture, if you don't appreciate Chicago architecture, then you've got bad taste in architecture.
For your girlfriend, tell her crime, corruption, and sales tax is higher here.
And one other item that really bites my ba**s: People in Chicago think that the U of Chicago is all that. Now, look, UC and Northwestern are two excellent world class universities. And people at Harvard and MIT are definitely full of themselves. But U Chicago actually goes to the step of claiming Nobel Laureates who have done as much as simply study a semester at UC! I mean, they claim Nobel winners for people who won their prize while at other universities. If you go to the UC website, they claim they have the most Nobel Laureates in the world, yet the Nobel website places them behind Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia.
Many (not all) U of C'ers suffer from an inferiority complex relative to the better known Ivies. Many (not all) people affiliated with Harvard are insufferable pricks. I say this as a proud graduate/trainee of both institutions. MIT people, on the otherhand, are pretty uniformly awesome. Bizarre, but awesome.
And one other item that really bites my ba**s: People in Chicago think that the U of Chicago is all that. Now, look, UC and Northwestern are two excellent world class universities. And people at Harvard and MIT are definitely full of themselves. But U Chicago actually goes to the step of claiming Nobel Laureates who have done as much as simply study a semester at UC! I mean, they claim Nobel winners for people who won their prize while at other universities. If you go to the UC website, they claim they have the most Nobel Laureates in the world, yet the Nobel website places them behind Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia.
It's that kind of attitude that bugs me.
Yeah, The University of Chicago's attitude on Nobel Laureates somehow reflects and mirrors a larger personality defect with the city as a whole. that makes a lot of sense.
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