Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Stop trying to take the thread to insults and below the belt post. No one is bringing in LA's homeless issues etc.
Chicago is not in a major Go-to region. Seen as having severe winters and hurting middle-class in rising taxes. But Corporate America IS maintaining its Global ranking. It is also a city in transition to more highly educated professionals.
Sadly its greatest losses are in high gangland crime neighborhood. But eventually these area will be ripe for spreading gentrification already entering some. But generally its the ones that turned Latino first.
Tourism keeps climbing as its recognition and positive feedback keeps increasing. Yes it lacks the International visitor numbers of the Coastal elite cities. But with TV how's set and filmed there and a top-tier Core and Skyline. It population is not hurting it whatsoever.
But the thread is not intended to throw low-blows and strife to demean any city as you try.
The low-blows and demeaning talk are expected, of certain posters. They never fail to come through, either, even knowing who and why people are leaving Chicago. Unbelievable, the threat they must feel, as the low-blows never cease, from certain posters...lol.
No one is being kicked out of Chicago. It is not a coastal city struggling with high prices. People are fleeing because half of the city is literally more dangerous than doing a tour with the Marines in Afghanistan.
Good grief, the bombast and negativity in this post is incredible. Maybe the worst post on C-D I've seen in a long time. And, that's an incredible accomplishment. Reassess your posting posture, man.
Why is this thread even still open? To anyone who knows anything about cities and has had the privilege of travel, it's pretty simple:
NYC (not by a wide margin)
Chicago (not by a wide margin)
LA
They're all good cities, just very different, as they should be.
No one is being kicked out of Chicago. It is not a coastal city struggling with high prices. People are fleeing because half of the city is literally more dangerous than doing a tour with the Marines in Afghanistan.
Too bad parts of LA literally look WORSE than a 3rd world concentration camp!!! Homeless tents, pollution, fecal matter on the streets. Infectious diseases spreading!!! Disgusting! Has the CDC investigated and SHUT it down yet???
Chicago's biggest problem is it is hemorrhaging population. Until that stops, it's rustbelt.
the hemorrhage is the poor. The growth is with the wealthy. Population is not an issue. The city is booming. Literally an f'ing boom town. Cognitive dissidence: you live on a planet with 9 billion people (first billion around 1800, second around 1930), a finite planet that can support, according to scientists, no more than 2 billion, while we live our fantasy of "endless supply for endless demand" (spoiler alert: the planet is dying. All those growing cities is killing it. In real time). You desire to see population growth on an ef-fin' finite planet.
New York and San Francisco do not hemorrhage population. They grow. And the very type of growth that feeds their nonhemorrhagability contributes to a sea level rise (look it up: it exists in the real world if not in the C-D fantasy world) which will inundate both NY and SF (Chicago does not get a pass on this: we like the rest of the globe will be shattered by what is happening climatically and environmentally). NY and SF's loses will be our loses as well.
Question: can "Chicago's biggest problem is it is hemorrhaging population" actually be a problem if Chicago does not consider it a problem? And if it is in fact a problem, do you care to define the type of problem it is?
OK, taking a pass? That's ok. I'll tell you: the "problem" is that Chicago like other successful US cities has become a place for the wealthy, people of means, and one where the demographic that rises is white. So it seems to me that when we lose African Americans, when we lose others of color, when we lose the poor, etc., we are losing our soul and saying that the only metric we care about is cold, hard cash. So in that sense, I will more than accept the fact that our "bleeding population" is to our shame, a sad testimony of how we marginalize people and squeeze them out..
I said all this rather lengthily in my previous post: Chicago doesn't care about population rising or falling. Chicago realizes that rises and falls in population do not correlate to rises and falls in its fortunes. Manhattan is a fraction of the size it was at its 1900 or so peak....lost people with smaller household sizes, grew enormously in wealth.
Basically we don't care if you think we are shrinking to invisibility or whether, as another poster noted, that we are killing each other in a sea of guns (while LA pollutes itself into an ooze that rides the LA River into San Pedro harbor).
We don't give a rat's ass. And we find it cringe worthy if you compare us to New York or Los Angeles (Boston, SF, Washington, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia....you get the picture) because, quiet frankly, we are unique. We are like no other place. We are as unique as San Francisco or New Orleans or Boston. There is nothing like Chicago. And that is the real message we send. Please don't come here if you are looking for something else. Come to Chicago if what you are looking for is Chicago. And from what I can see with people coming both domestically and from abroad, the vast majority are finding exactly the type of exciting place they wish to be.
the hemorrhage is the poor. The growth is with the wealthy. Population is not an issue. The city is booming. Literally an f'ing boom town. Cognitive dissidence: you live on a planet with 9 billion people (first billion around 1800, second around 1930), a finite planet that can support, according to scientists, no more than 2 billion, while we live our fantasy of "endless supply for endless demand" (spoiler alert: the planet is dying. All those growing cities is killing it. In real time). You desire to see population growth on an ef-fin' finite planet.
New York and San Francisco do not hemorrhage population. They grow. And the very type of growth that feeds their nonhemorrhagability contributes to a sea level rise (look it up: it exists in the real world if not in the C-D fantasy world) which will inundate both NY and SF (Chicago does not get a pass on this: we like the rest of the globe will be shattered by what is happening climatically and environmentally). NY and SF's loses will be our loses as well.
Question: can "Chicago's biggest problem is it is hemorrhaging population" actually be a problem if Chicago does not consider it a problem? And if it is in fact a problem, do you care to define the type of problem it is?
OK, taking a pass? That's ok. I'll tell you: the "problem" is that Chicago like other successful US cities has become a place for the wealthy, people of means, and one where the demographic that rises is white. So it seems to me that when we lose African Americans, when we lose others of color, when we lose the poor, etc., we are losing our soul and saying that the only metric we care about is cold, hard cash. So in that sense, I will more than accept the fact that our "bleeding population" is to our shame, a sad testimony of how we marginalize people and squeeze them out..
I said all this rather lengthily in my previous post: Chicago doesn't care about population rising or falling. Chicago realizes that rises and falls in population do not correlate to rises and falls in its fortunes. Manhattan is a fraction of the size it was at its 1900 or so peak....lost people with smaller household sizes, grew enormously in wealth.
Basically we don't care if you think we are shrinking to invisibility or whether, as another poster noted, that we are killing each other in a sea of guns (while LA pollutes itself into an ooze that rides the LA River into San Pedro harbor).
We don't give a rat's ass. And we find it cringe worthy if you compare us to New York or Los Angeles (Boston, SF, Washington, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia....you get the picture) because, quiet frankly, we are unique. We are like no other place. We are as unique as San Francisco or New Orleans or Boston. There is nothing like Chicago. And that is the real message we send. Please don't come here if you are looking for something else. Come to Chicago if what you are looking for is Chicago. And from what I can see with people coming both domestically and from abroad, the vast majority are finding exactly the type of exciting place they wish to be.
I’d much rather Chicago grew in population at the expense of suburban sprawl and greenfield development.
Good grief, the bombast and negativity in this post is incredible. Maybe the worst post on C-D I've seen in a long time. And, that's an incredible accomplishment. Reassess your posting posture, man.
Why is this thread even still open? To anyone who knows anything about cities and has had the privilege of travel, it's pretty simple:
NYC (not by a wide margin)
Chicago (not by a wide margin)
LA
They're all good cities, just very different, as they should be.
Good cities that would be dead without each other. Does anyone seriously believe that any one of them doesn't benefit greatly from the existence of the other two.
Want proof: what is the single greatest reason for the true rise of New York, the real reason it became this nation's leading city (when cities like Boston and Philadelphia have deep English colonial roots and once were the two main cities in colonial era)? There is one, and only one, reason for NY was propelled to the collosos it is today: the Erie Canal.
New York was the only city on the eastern seaboard that could connect with the bounty of the new nation's interior, bring it all into port, and ship it elsewhere, much across the Atlantic.
The rise of New York caused the rise of another city. The anointed city. The hand picked city of Gotham. That city was (is) Chicago. New York said, "we are the eastern terminus, we choose you as the western". New York created the the rise of Chicago while New York destroyed St. Louis's primacy.
I’d much rather Chicago grew in population at the expense of suburban sprawl and greenfield development.
and you think I don't? There is no great area of growth in suburban Chicago. The fringe of the metropolitan area stopped having any real growth years ago. And our inner suburbs are the ones that are proving attractive because of their proximity to the city. That's why high rise living is a part of Evanston, Oak Park, Skokie.
As I said previously, I don't consider population growth to be a good thing, and certainly it is not something that we (or any place) needs. I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy the type of population growth that Houston would be generating if and when it passes Chicago in population. A city without a heavy rail rapid transit system, without commuter rail, a city virtually chocking on its cars would be virtually unlivable if it grew to that size. Be careful what you wish for.
And seriously, folks, can we at least in a rudimentary way bring in the concept of reality into our conversations? Can we admit that the climate is changing. Big time and for the worse? Can we admit that we are killing off endless species in our sixth mass extinction? Can we admit that we are turing our major cities into a rat's maze as we crowd everybody in?
Can we admit that Chicago's inland climate will be far hotter during this century, that we are going to lose much of New York's wealth to the rising tides of the Atlantic (and realize the irony that it is the very forces of Wall Street that are responsible for the sea rise which soon, soon enough, will see the rising East River inundate that very Wall Street? Can we admit to ourselves that Miami is, more likely than not, doomed, that it will be under water, that even at this moment, choice property is losing its value and may end up being unsellable? Can we admit that Las Vegas is signing its own death certificate with its endless neon, endless fountains and all its other excesses. Can we admit that Phoenix may be no more livable this century than Miami, even though it will still be above water.....or should I say above "no water". Can we admit that when Disney World opens its 8th themed park, summers in Orlando will be way too hot for tourism and that WDW will no doubt implode?
Can we stop the ludicrous idea that variables do not exist? Probably not. But, hey, I'm sure looking for how great New York will be when it hits 15,000,000 and I'm looking forward to my house in the sky on 57th St's billionaires row, where I can step out of the lobby and be directly on the shoreline of an expanded New York Bay. The ultimate beachfront property.
the hemorrhage is the poor. The growth is with the wealthy. Population is not an issue. The city is booming. Literally an f'ing boom town. Cognitive dissidence: you live on a planet with 9 billion people (first billion around 1800, second around 1930), a finite planet that can support, according to scientists, no more than 2 billion, while we live our fantasy of "endless supply for endless demand" (spoiler alert: the planet is dying. All those growing cities is killing it. In real time). You desire to see population growth on an ef-fin' finite planet.
New York and San Francisco do not hemorrhage population. They grow. And the very type of growth that feeds their nonhemorrhagability contributes to a sea level rise (look it up: it exists in the real world if not in the C-D fantasy world) which will inundate both NY and SF (Chicago does not get a pass on this: we like the rest of the globe will be shattered by what is happening climatically and environmentally). NY and SF's loses will be our loses as well.
Question: can "Chicago's biggest problem is it is hemorrhaging population" actually be a problem if Chicago does not consider it a problem? And if it is in fact a problem, do you care to define the type of problem it is?
OK, taking a pass? That's ok. I'll tell you: the "problem" is that Chicago like other successful US cities has become a place for the wealthy, people of means, and one where the demographic that rises is white. So it seems to me that when we lose African Americans, when we lose others of color, when we lose the poor, etc., we are losing our soul and saying that the only metric we care about is cold, hard cash. So in that sense, I will more than accept the fact that our "bleeding population" is to our shame, a sad testimony of how we marginalize people and squeeze them out..
I said all this rather lengthily in my previous post: Chicago doesn't care about population rising or falling. Chicago realizes that rises and falls in population do not correlate to rises and falls in its fortunes. Manhattan is a fraction of the size it was at its 1900 or so peak....lost people with smaller household sizes, grew enormously in wealth.
Basically we don't care if you think we are shrinking to invisibility or whether, as another poster noted, that we are killing each other in a sea of guns (while LA pollutes itself into an ooze that rides the LA River into San Pedro harbor).
We don't give a rat's ass. And we find it cringe worthy if you compare us to New York or Los Angeles (Boston, SF, Washington, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia....you get the picture) because, quiet frankly, we are unique. We are like no other place. We are as unique as San Francisco or New Orleans or Boston. There is nothing like Chicago. And that is the real message we send. Please don't come here if you are looking for something else. Come to Chicago if what you are looking for is Chicago. And from what I can see with people coming both domestically and from abroad, the vast majority are finding exactly the type of exciting place they wish to be.
the hemorrhage is the poor. The growth is with the wealthy. Population is not an issue. The city is booming. Literally an f'ing boom town. Cognitive dissidence: you live on a planet with 9 billion people (first billion around 1800, second around 1930), a finite planet that can support, according to scientists, no more than 2 billion, while we live our fantasy of "endless supply for endless demand" (spoiler alert: the planet is dying. All those growing cities is killing it. In real time). You desire to see population growth on an ef-fin' finite planet.
New York and San Francisco do not hemorrhage population. They grow. And the very type of growth that feeds their nonhemorrhagability contributes to a sea level rise (look it up: it exists in the real world if not in the C-D fantasy world) which will inundate both NY and SF (Chicago does not get a pass on this: we like the rest of the globe will be shattered by what is happening climatically and environmentally). NY and SF's loses will be our loses as well.
Question: can "Chicago's biggest problem is it is hemorrhaging population" actually be a problem if Chicago does not consider it a problem? And if it is in fact a problem, do you care to define the type of problem it is?
OK, taking a pass? That's ok. I'll tell you: the "problem" is that Chicago like other successful US cities has become a place for the wealthy, people of means, and one where the demographic that rises is white. So it seems to me that when we lose African Americans, when we lose others of color, when we lose the poor, etc., we are losing our soul and saying that the only metric we care about is cold, hard cash. So in that sense, I will more than accept the fact that our "bleeding population" is to our shame, a sad testimony of how we marginalize people and squeeze them out..
I said all this rather lengthily in my previous post: Chicago doesn't care about population rising or falling. Chicago realizes that rises and falls in population do not correlate to rises and falls in its fortunes. Manhattan is a fraction of the size it was at its 1900 or so peak....lost people with smaller household sizes, grew enormously in wealth.
Basically we don't care if you think we are shrinking to invisibility or whether, as another poster noted, that we are killing each other in a sea of guns (while LA pollutes itself into an ooze that rides the LA River into San Pedro harbor).
We don't give a rat's ass. And we find it cringe worthy if you compare us to New York or Los Angeles (Boston, SF, Washington, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia....you get the picture) because, quiet frankly, we are unique. We are like no other place. We are as unique as San Francisco or New Orleans or Boston. There is nothing like Chicago. And that is the real message we send. Please don't come here if you are looking for something else. Come to Chicago if what you are looking for is Chicago. And from what I can see with people coming both domestically and from abroad, the vast majority are finding exactly the type of exciting place they wish to be.
You aren't telling Wizard anything he/she doesn't already know. Wizard is well aware of why Chicago is losing population, and what population it's losing. It just doesn't fit with his/her agenda, so it's fun to throw it out there, to see if it will stick.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
