Quote:
Originally Posted by Koji7
Not every person or every NY’er (like me) hates your city. I think you are on guard for anything at all to grab onto, every baited loaded post that slights your city and then it turns into an obsession and a fight. In my opinion every city is interesting and fun to explore and unless you like to waste energy from the writings of a very few bored people why do you care what someone you don’t know likes or thinks? They’re playing with you. There are a lot of threads where I don’t agree but the last thing I want to do is argue and debate someone on the internet. Just my .02.
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My experience with New Yorkers is thr tend to like Chicago. A lot. And I think that is the experience of many Chicagoans.
Your attitude on cities is refreshing and mature.
Here’s how I see the three:
Great cities, all. Each is vastly different from the other. None of the three need to duke it out with the other two. Each is secure in its own skin. You don’t have to compare any of the three with each other. Just looking at any of them lets you know you are in a great global city.
So it is not a matter of better or worse, just different
To start with, New York and Los Angeles are something Chicago is not. NY and LA are megacities. I am not sure what Chicago’s grouping is called but it certainly falls in the level right below megacities
Here is what is critically important
New York likes being a megacity
Los Angeles likes being a megacity
Chicago likes being a very large city
Megacities and large cities are different breeds of cat. Not better, not worse. Both groupings have positives and negatives about them
New York and Los Angeles better like beingg megacities; they will not lose that status chicago better not be too comfortable in its large city status. It is, despite what Foreign and others may think, is slated to become a megacity. It is not necessarily what we want...I’d rather Foreign was right about us
Chicago works because of a unique position it occupies. New York and Los Angeles are megacities. Chicago alone is in the inbetween position, a favorable mix of qualities of the megacities and the big cities below chicago thrives in this position
To illustrate what I mean by my comparison, I will break it down in three groups
1. New York and Los Angeles
2. Chicago
3. San Francisco, Boston and others
Foreign’s list of US cities with the greast number of (no pun intended) foreign visitors shows these six as the top ones (eliminating the four which were not there for their urban quality)
The top six cities in order are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, Boston.
Five were in a coastal zone. One is smack in the middle of the country. The norteastern cities and the California pair are in regions with other major cities. Chicago is alone. All this feeds into Chicago’s persona.
New York may be America’s greatest city. But Chicago is the Great American City”. It wasn’t founded by the British like Boston or the area that became DC, a place where George gave his name to Georgetown. The Dutch founded New York, the Spanish LA and SF
Chicago was founded by Americans. Chicago needs to stay just barely under the radar to cntinue to be Great American City. Our skyline doesn’t look like New York’s because New York and Philadelphia and Boston faced east across the Atlantic to Europe. The real American architecture devloped in the midcontinent in the most of American setting
New York could not be New York without being the top and the most of any place. San Francisco could not be San Francisco with over a million people. SF had to be able to fit in your pocket to be SF
And Chicago could not be Chicago without that special niche in the middle.
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