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If there is a case for NYC being worth its cost premium over Chicago, it certainly isn't being made in this thread.
Seeing the usual boiler plate "its the vibe, the energy" type replies along with the typical vague "late night food" anecdotal stories.
Of course the NYC side will laugh at the notion that there even needs to be any justification, but if it can't be articulated in writing (it hasn't), then we're all free to draw conclusions from that.
Lived and worked in Chicago (the city) for 13 years and during that time, I estimate having taken at least 25 work trips to NYC (banking industry). I often tacked on a weekend to the work trips so that I could have some extra time to explore and see things. Interesting? Yes. Frenzy? Yes. Diverse? Yes. Everything? Yes. More recently, I worked remotely (no longer in Chicago) for another large bank and then faced the reality of having my “role” transfer to either Charlotte or NYC. I ultimately did not relocate to either city, but if I had, it would have been to the NYC office, BUT at that point in my life, I would not have lived in the city, it likely would have been somewhere in the Hudson Valley. As a middle-ager, I would not have wanted to throw myself into that daily frenzy of commuting to/from work, going out for lunch, running errands, etc. . . . AND THE COST! It takes a certain person to live that life and that happens to be a very small minority of Americans. If you love it, good for you! I like to visit. But it seems that some in this discussion offer a very demeaning attitude toward those who live elsewhere.
I spent the bulk of my twenties in New York (Park Slope, West Village, Hell's Kitchen, Morningside Heights) and the first half of my thirties in Chicago (Hyde Park, River North, Edgewater) They are both wonderful cities to live in, as long as you can handle a real winter.
For me the price premium to live in NYC is not quite worth it, but YMMV. New York obviously has more of most things and more and better of many things, but my line has always been: "There is not much you can do in New York that you can't do in Chicago for half the price, an eighth of the hassle and none of the attitude." I get that the hassle and attitude are part of the mystique.
Chicago, in my experience offers the best urban bang for your buck in the English-speaking world. Melbourne second, Philadelphia and Manchester UK can duke it out for third. Housing in Chicago is mostly cheaper and nicer than New York, except for the super high end. Most Chicago apartments come with a dining room. New York would try call that space an extra bedroom and charge accordingly. Many, many Chicago apartments have a large deck at the back, the equivalent of a New York fire escape, except that it is big enough to hold a dining table and chairs. In New York, they call that a terrace and it is rare rather than standard. You don't have to pay an arm and a leg to live in a shoebox in Chicago. . .
Chicago is also easier to get around. Public transport is entirely sufficient but you can also have a car if you want one. The beaches in the summer are much more generally accessible (and cleaner). There is more and better BBQ, Mexican and Polish food, more and better blues music in Chicago, but for nearly everything else there is simply more (and often better) in New York.
So its trade offs: Are you willing to have only 2 world-class art museums in Chicago as opposed to 5 in New York in order to have a more comfortable living situation and more disposable income? I find New York exciting but stressful and exhausting, so when I lived there I was often too tired and irritable to take advantage of all that was on offer. Chicago is hardly sleepy but it is a little more chill than New York, and paradoxically less provincial in the sense that for a sizable minority of New Yorkers if it does not happen in New York, it does not count.
You have been given a lot of info/perspectives in this thread so far, including a lot of rubbish. I agree with the poster who said check them both out, and it will be your priorities that decide which one is best for you, not something that is intrinsic to either place in a pecking order.
This is the type of city we are trying to develop in planning. Good transit, walkable and interesting designs.. but a city where if you wanna drive to the beach or a hike, you can. Chicago could make a good case for this going forward.
Milwaukee is 1.5 hrs. north of Chicago. It has lots of bars and a whole lot more to enjoy, I would think, than Hoboken, lol.
Milwaukee has 96 square miles of land with about 570K people in it. Hoboken is on 1.25 square miles of land with about 60K people, so yea, I would expect there to be more stuff in Milwaukee. However, Hoboken is part of Hudson County which at 47 square miles has over 700K people in it and almost certainly has a *lot* more bars than Milwaukee does and is part of a larger very walkable urban expanse of the Bergen Neck peninsula that also includes lower Bergen County. All of this is across the river from Manhattan and that has bridges and tunnels crossed by trains, subways, buses, bikes, and pedestrians and with some ferry service to boot.
This is the type of city we are trying to develop in planning. Good transit, walkable and interesting designs.. but a city where if you wanna drive to the beach or a hike, you can. Chicago could make a good case for this going forward.
Chicago to me is extremely car-centric even if better than almost anywhere else in the US on this measure. Its mass transit and pedestrian infrastructure need a huge amount of work. Hopefully that does happen. I find Lake Shore Drive as an expressway to be especially horrendous land use policy, though I think I'm probably a minority on this at least within the Chicago subforum here. I also really dislike the high prevalence of automotive traffic in their major parks. Chicago has great bones, but it is very car-centric even if less so than almost all other US cities.
Chicago to me is extremely car-centric even if better than almost anywhere else in the US on this measure. Its mass transit and pedestrian infrastructure need a huge amount of work. Hopefully that does happen. I find Lake Shore Drive as an expressway to be especially horrendous land use policy, though I think I'm probably a minority on this at least within the Chicago subforum here. I also really dislike the high prevalence of automotive traffic in their major parks. Chicago has great bones, but it is very car-centric even if less so than almost all other US cities.
Yeah its a good discussion and Lake Shore Drive is absolutely horrible land-use policy. So much more can be done with it. But we could also draw similar examples. (Ie, Storrow Drive in Boston, FDR in Manhattan, the Njtpk over the meadowlands, etc).
Like you said, in short, Chicago has the bones to work with and the infrastructure is there. It just needs to be enhanced and given Complete Streets certifications and then it'd be nice to play with.
Meanwhile in Chicago a lot of the crime ridden areas are no go zones. Hearing my citizens app constantly ring because of shootings while I was enjoying Chicago was sort of disturbing.
When I was in Chicago a 7 year old girl was shot to death in a McDonalds drive thru lane while the car was getting bonnie and clyde not too far from where i was. Chicago still has very dangerous areas and horrific stuff spreads across the city.
As you already know, it’s mostly the South Side and to a degree West Side. Post George Floyd riots, as with most major cities, there’s been more spillover into the historically nicer areas (downtown and the North Side), but based on statistics the vast majority of violent crime is in the South and West sides. This is well known.
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