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Glad you enjoyed your visit. Things quiet down at night, but Michigan Ave. -at night, is not as vibrant as during the day. At night, more bustling neighborhoods are River North, Fulton Market, Randolph St. and outlying neighborhoods like Logan Sq, Wrigleyville, Bucktown, etc.
Red and Blue line trains (CTA) run 24 hours.
Having traveled to every large city in the U.S., Chicago is a rare gift.
Chicago is the best city in the US, bar none. Clean, functional, urban, and real world.
I just hope the CTA gets back to hiring more staff because service is down 24% YOY
I cant wait for my visit there next May. Love that city.
Chicago is the best city in the US, bar none. Clean, functional, urban, and real world.
I just hope the CTA gets back to hiring more staff because service is down 24% YOY
I cant wait for my visit there next May. Love that city.
Chicago is definitely a real bargain compared to cities on the coasts.
You can get a lot of similar restaurant quality and bar experiences in Chicago, that you could find in Boston, NYC, Philly, LA, San Fran, Seattle, etc.
The city of Chicago in the main areas is cleaner, aesthetically beautiful in many areas, and offers a fast-pace urban lifestyle for a fraction of the cost on the coasts.
Personally, a couple of reasons I don't choose to live there though, is the long and mostly cold winter with frigid winds, and the flat surrounding geography offering much less to see or do--no mountains and no ocean close.
Otherwise, it's a nice bang for the buck large city.
Chicago is definitely a real bargain compared to cities on the coasts.
You can get a lot of similar restaurant quality and bar experiences in Chicago, that you could find in Boston, NYC, Philly, LA, San Fran, Seattle, etc.
The city of Chicago in the main areas is cleaner, aesthetically beautiful in many areas, and offers a fast-pace urban lifestyle for a fraction of the cost on the coasts.
Personally, a couple of reasons I don't choose to live there though, is the long and mostly cold winter with frigid winds, and the flat surrounding geography offering much less to see or do--no mountains and no ocean close.
Otherwise, it's a nice bang for the buck large city.
Absolutely. Totally agree with your assessment.
I would consider living there if the winters were less harsh and their was a more vibrant topography.
It has my very core, but outside the core is where I start to favor other larger cities. But it makes visiting Chicago a perfect getaway when you want an urban/city weekend.
Isn't there still an ongoing bit of residential construction and office-to-residential conversion going on in the Loop? I reckon that'll really push things to be more bustling at night.
There's residential conversion, mainly as part of the LaSalle St corridor re-envision, but most nearby residential is Fulton Market and West Loop Gate. Some on both sides of Eisenhower expressway too.
Chicago is definitely a real bargain compared to cities on the coasts.
You can get a lot of similar restaurant quality and bar experiences in Chicago, that you could find in Boston, NYC, Philly, LA, San Fran, Seattle, etc.
The city of Chicago in the main areas is cleaner, aesthetically beautiful in many areas, and offers a fast-pace urban lifestyle for a fraction of the cost on the coasts.
Personally, a couple of reasons I don't choose to live there though, is the long and mostly cold winter with frigid winds, and the flat surrounding geography offering much less to see or do--no mountains and no ocean close.
Otherwise, it's a nice bang for the buck large city.
Chicago is the best city in the US, bar none. Clean, functional, urban, and real world.
I just hope the CTA gets back to hiring more staff because service is down 24% YOY
I cant wait for my visit there next May. Love that city.
This is the impression I got from a visit two weeks ago.
Using CTA rail in the loop during rush hour I had to run up and down the platform to find a door I could get through, then lucky to find a strap to grab. Probably about 100 to 1 pedestrian to car ratio downtown during the day.
Also the street activity was very diverse-people engaged in a variety of activities, not just walking dogs like here.
I can think of no other city on this continent that has that level of urbanity/amenities that ALSO feels like a place that an average person would live life.
Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Seattle on my list were just guesses from reading about them and from past, pre-pandemic experiences.
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Toronto's DT core cannot at all be judged now against pre-pandemic levels. Except for the fidi which is still bustling but not quite as much due to increased remote work - the DT core is way more bustling and busy than at any point before.
Toronto's DT core cannot at all be judged now against pre-pandemic levels. Except for the fidi which is still bustling but not quite as much due to increased remote work - the DT core is way more bustling and busy than at any point before.
Not sure if that’s strictly true, just based on the TTC. but generally Canadian urban core cities are growing way faster so if they fell off the 2010-2019 pace like American cities they generally declined less.
This is the impression I got from a visit two weeks ago.
Using CTA rail in the loop during rush hour I had to run up and down the platform to find a door I could get through, then lucky to find a strap to grab. Probably about 100 to 1 pedestrian to car ratio downtown during the day.
Also the street activity was very diverse-people engaged in a variety of activities, not just walking dogs like here.
I can think of no other city on this continent that has that level of urbanity/amenities that ALSO feels like a place that an average person would live life.
Yeah i agree.
Boston has too many collegiate/stuck up. LA too flashy. New York has too many of the rich and poor extremes. San Francisco is like NY, but more extreme in each direction You think, where are the middles class, the normal people??
So I have to say, I do think that Chicago does have the best and most beautiful downtown between the U.S and Canada. The amount of hate the city gets is unfair, it's truly a beautiful city, clean and like others said, a bargain. My wife and I are actually thinking of possibly moving there or buying property there... we'll see how things go in the short term.
On another note, something that I love about downtown Montreal is the entertainment district. I shared it a while back on the Montreal forum, but we smashed a record this summer in terms of attendance at summer festivals this year, with ~5 million people attending 30 festivals. Jazz fest is usually 2M, JFL about 1.2M and Francos was 400,000 this year. Year round festivals attendance for 2023 currently sits at 6 million. I can't think of any other cities on the planet that comes close to this.
More festivals will be added and I do hope they continue to expand winter offerings and more festivals in the Spring/Fall. So far, the largest festival outside the summer season is Montreal en Lumiere/Nuit Blanche, which has about a combined 1M visitors over 10 days, half being on Nuit Blanche.
Downtown Montreal seems to be all over the place though, to be honest. The return to office initiatives are not really working, so our daytime population is not close to pre-pandemic levels. It still hovers between 500,000 on a bad day to 750-800K on a good day, according to estimates I got from the city. St. Catherine street has seen growth surpassing pre-pandemic levels, vacancy rates on the street are plummeting, with the renovated areas inching close to full vacancy. This summer, we smashed records in almost every regard, but I believe this is just a seasonal thing. Opening of the REM has slowly allowed for more people to come downtown too, but on the flip-side, endless (and the worst coordinated) construction is impacting commuters coming downtown, along with the city now charging for street side parking until 11pm.
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