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I sometimes think Chicago can be overrated. It has a nice skyline and dense urban neighborhoods, but I feel there are a lot of internal issues in the city that makes it hard to call it cosmopolitan and a truly top global city. It just doesn't have the same vibe you find in cities like NYC, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, LA, and even SF.
I feel like SF is already ahead of Chicago and if not, give it 20 more years. I think Chicago has matured and peaked and quite frankly, doesn't have that essence that NYC has to keep it at the very top.
Such as?
Chicago's demographics alone reflect that the city is cosmopolitan. It's not really up for debate.
Chicago's demographics alone reflect that the city is cosmopolitan. It's not really up for debate.
Racism is pretty strong in the city of Chicago. Segregation also. It's an EXTREMELY segregated city. The different ethnicities don't really seem to hang out with each other at all.
Then we go on to the image of crime. A good half(Maybe even more) of the city limits is crime ridden ghetto. It's the simple truth. Really, outside of the core and the 3 mile wide linear strip going north, the rest of the city is very undesirable. Even NYC cleaned up it's crime problem and now it's a safe city.
Cosmopolitan vibe is more than just having different ethnicities living within your city limits. Chicago just doesn't have that diverse vibe you find in NYC. SF also has that diverse vibe as well and I feel like as a black, I won't be outcasted in SF as I would be in any of Chicago's northern neighborhoods.
Let's not forget Chicago's corrupt leadership either. I forgot about that.
I sometimes think Chicago can be overrated. It has a nice skyline and dense urban neighborhoods, but I feel there are a lot of internal issues in the city that makes it hard to call it cosmopolitan and a truly top global city. It just doesn't have the same vibe you find in cities like NYC, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, LA, and even SF.
I feel like SF is already ahead of Chicago and if not, give it 20 more years. I think Chicago has matured and peaked and quite frankly, doesn't have that essence that NYC has to keep it at the very top.
I'm just tired of seeing these two being compared literally every single day, other cities exist in this country too, and these two aren't the premier cities of the United States. I'd rather take Los Angeles over San Francisco if I had to go out to California and New York over Chicago. If it came down to San Francisco and Chicago, I'm just staying home in Washington.
Racism is pretty strong in the city of Chicago. Segregation also. It's an EXTREMELY segregated city. The different ethnicities don't really seem to hang out with each other at all.
New York City has all of those same problems and it is even more segregated than Chicago is.
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Then we go on to the image of crime. A good half(Maybe even more) of the city limits is crime ridden ghetto. It's the simple truth. Really, outside of the core and the 3 mile wide linear strip going north, the rest of the city is very undesirable. Even NYC cleaned up it's crime problem and now it's a safe city.
No. Just no. That statement is the complete opposite of the truth.
The majority of the city's violent crime, especially the murders, are confined to a small handful of areas in the city. It's not even remotely close to being half of the city's area, let alone half of the city's population. Honestly, you sound like one of those who people who thinks that there isn't one stable neighborhood on the South Side and that they're going to get shot the second they go south of Roosevelt.
Crime in Chicago is also vastly down from its peak. The city actually hasn't been this safe since the 60s, and the rates continue to fall. Did New York and Los Angeles cut their crime to even lower levels than Chicago? Yes, they did. That does not change the fact that Chicago's crime rate has gone down dramatically as well though.
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Cosmopolitan vibe is more than just having different ethnicities living within your city limits. Chicago just doesn't have that diverse vibe you find in NYC. SF also has that diverse vibe as well and I feel like as a black, I won't be outcasted in SF as I would be in any of Chicago's northern neighborhoods.
The city is nowhere close to being homogenous demographically nor culturally, so if that's not cosmopolitan then I honestly don't know what is. This was never a question of whether or not Chicago is more cosmopolitan than New York or San Francisco. It's honestly down right impossible to say that Chicago is not cosmopolitan when you take into account the city's racial, ethnic, and foreign-born make up, in addition to the quality of the city's cultural institutions, food scene, etc. We're talking about the third largest city in the United States here, not a lily white suburb of Des Moines.
I fully admit that Chicago in certain ways struggles with race relations, but some people on this forum honestly make the city sound like the South under Jim Crow, which is so far from reality that it's mind numbing.
I'm sorry that you don't feel like you'd be accepted in Chicago, but, for what it's worth, two of the city's most diverse neighborhoods are in fact on the North Side.
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Let's not forget Chicago's corrupt leadership either. I forgot about that.
If this is a disqualifying factor, then a good chunk of the global cities outside of the US need to be reevaluated because corruption here is a joke compared to many other places.
When looking at the US alone, let's also not forget that Los Angeles is right behind Chicago when it comes to corruption.
There is simply no comparison between the size of downtown Chicago and SF, none. Anyone who says otherwise is simply ignorant of one of the two cities. Chicago is just plain massive compared to SF.
Chicago's core is larger than that of SF, but I would say 40-50% larger, at most. SF has a huge core too, and they are definitely comparable. Chicago definitely has a bigger core, but SF definitely has a more prestigious core.
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Originally Posted by Attrill
Other than NYC you won't find any city that has a CBD that compares to Chicago in the US.
Now this is total bull. Chicago isn't remotely in NYC's league in terms of CBD. NYC is like 5 times bigger and 10 times more prestigious. Chicago is much closer in size and prestige to SF, Boston, DC and Philly.
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Originally Posted by Attrill
Transportation in Chicago is also far better than SF.
This is also bull. Chicago has significantly lower transit share than Chicago. They're, at a minimum, roughly comparable. You can't argue that a city with much lower transit share has much better transit; that's ridiculous.
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Originally Posted by Attrill
SF is simply a lot smaller and more homogenous than Chicago.
This is also bull. They're about the same size (9-10 million to 8 million), SF has a slightly larger economy, and SF is generally more racially and ethically diverse.
All that said, I would prefer to live in Chicago, but let's be real already.
^One argument I would quickly make is that transit share doesn't say anything about quality or efficacy of transit. Jersey City has a higher transit share than SF, but it does NOT have better overall transit; Hartford has a higher transit share than LA but it does NOT have better transit. You cannot compare transit shares across cities of disparate sizes because it's an apples and oranges comparison. As a frequent visitor of SF with several friends that live there, Chicago has the better, more cohesive (and generally cheaper) transit system. I feel that most people often feel this way, too.
I sometimes think Chicago can be overrated. It has a nice skyline and dense urban neighborhoods, but I feel there are a lot of internal issues in the city that makes it hard to call it cosmopolitan and a truly top global city. It just doesn't have the same vibe you find in cities like NYC, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, LA, and even SF.
I feel like SF is already ahead of Chicago and if not, give it 20 more years. I think Chicago has matured and peaked and quite frankly, doesn't have that essence that NYC has to keep it at the very top.
I could see that relative to the other cities, but not so much SF.
At the end of the day, you're looking at two of the greatest cities in all of the United States.
Chicago's my third favorite American city, right behind Miami and New York, and consequently has a very deep showcase for nightlife. Varied and exciting, much more so than San Francisco by a good bit. San Francisco is a better city for those that want to live an active outdoor lifestyle. My cousins in the Bay Area hike every morning before they go to work, most people live very close to accessible trails and it's a daily day-to-day thing there.
I'm more into Chicago's night options personally and the city is set up more to my liking than San Francisco, if it's any consolation, I think the exact opposite of Bay Area to Chicagoland (the satellite cities and suburbs). Draw.
Top five American cities; New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington are set. Couldn't go wrong with any of the five, so to the original poster, couldn't go wrong with his options.
I think Lincoln Park has a different kind of popularity to it now. It's an extremely popular neighborhood, but it's aimed at the yuppie crowd and to a lesser extent the recent college grad. Sort of like the trajectory that parts of Bucktown seems to be on.
Yeah, I could see myself being behind the times on the latest hipster trends as I don't do the urban pioneer thing. The closest I ever came to that was my time in Rogers Park for undergrad, but my time there is currently in the rearview mirror.
Yeah, the difference between Boystown or Andersonville will depend on what the OP is looking for. Anderonsville isn't bad, but it's too chill for my taste, if that makes any sense. I prefer Boystown.
If living in a gayborhood isn't a primary concern, then he's good to go pretty much anywhere that's even remotely popular in the city.
I've been offered two jobs: one in Chicago, one in San Francisco. I live ~45 min from SF but haven't spent too much time there so I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts. Mid 20s, single, gay male here if that matters. I'm a native of Southern California so also curious to hear from any Californian's who have made the adjustment. Thank you!
If you're serious you should ask this question in each cities sub-forum with greater details about your field of work and what amenities are offered by the city that are important to you. Asking this question on this sub is just continuing the circle jerk.
For what it's worth...I grew up in Chicago and left for Southern California when I was in my mid-20's. My field has a few hubs in NA and SF is one of them. Because of that I have a lot of friends in the Bay Area and due to business I am there quite a bit. SF is a great place as is Chicago. Depending upon where I was at in life I would be happy to be stuck with the dilemma of choosing between the two.
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