Downtown in the skyscraper districts during the daytime isn’t all that bad.
Lots of people working downtown live in the suburbs, which are safer at night.
With their debt loading, their future will make the current Detroit look like utopia.
It’s a dynamic and beautiful city.
There is a reason Chicago is in Crook County.
Thomas Jefferson
"The mobs of great cities add just so much to support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body".
Thomas Jefferson
A few years ago I stayed at a hotel near Wrigley Field. That area wasn’t bad. But it was summer. I wouldn’t want to be in Chicago during the winter.
I am in real estate and have traveled all around Chicago for 19 years. Most visitors will probably stay downtown or in one of the residential neighborhoods adjacent to downtown. All these areas are very nice. Downtown Chicago has many residential towers full of young people. There is this vibrancy in the area that is attractive. Your daughter probably was affected by the ambiance and all the tall buildings. It is relatively safe in these areas too. All the gangland nonsense is typically found in the poor ghetto neighborhoods. The ones full of single mother homes and all the associated problems that go with that. Those areas look completely different and devoid of hope. Chicago’s slogan is that it is a City of Neighborhoods. It’s largely true from my personal experience.
“Chicago: A Great City?”
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GREECE: A GREAT COUNTRY?
To both questions, the qualifier of “WHEN” needs to be added to give a correct answer. IMHO Chicago does not have a great financial or economic future.
No! Chicago like every big and small city gets a bad rap on crime - just make her stay away from inner cities. I doubt any woman would have any interest in them anyway. Chicago is pretty and the shopping looks great!
I lived in Chicago many years ago. I had the good fortune to live 1/2 block off of Lake Shore Drive and 2 blocs from my office on Michigan Ave. That also made it 1.5 blocks from the beach. So pretty much every amenity you could want was right there. And that part of town didn’t have much, if any, violence (at least back then)
If someone likes cities, Chicago is a fine one to live in. The folks I met are really nice, midwestern types, albeit a little liberal as in any city. But polite, civil, would do anything to help a friend or neighbor. Chicago has the Art Institute, Second City, good theatre, symphony, fine restaurants, bars if you drink. You can (and I did) take classes at local universities. Transportation is incredibly good, with a super commuter railroad system for travel to the ‘burbs for visits to relatives. So, yes it’s a great city. You’d just have to start off liking cities.
My primary objection was the brutal and endless winter! Snow/ice from Thanksgiving till Easter, continuing pretty much with cold till Memorial Day. After a year, I left for Southern California!
Stay away from MLK Blvd.
I spent 20 years there as a LEO. Retired and got out.
Like any historic, Big City, it has good areas and some excitement.
In my 20 years there I watched Dick Daley the Younger change Chicago. My own analogy is that he changed it from the “Blues Brothers” Chicago to the “Ferris Bueller” Chicago.
From gritty and workmanlike; to flashy and ‘friendly’, but oh so much more corrupt.
The Outfit guys of the 50s and 60s could of only dreamt about what the Machine has going on there now.
What makes it [Chicago] different?
Great hot dogs and a hot dog stand or restaurant on almost every street.
Portillos Italian Beef sandwiches
Italian Restaurants in the Elmwood Park area
White Castle hamburgers
At night the "Loop," the heart of the business district, is pretty deserted. But I have often been in the Michigan Avenue area at night and felt perfectly safe. Like any big city, there are neighborhoods to avoid. If you go to the Museum of Science and Industry, or Aquarium, two great places, go by Lake Shore Drive, don't try the direct route through the South Side neighborhoods.
I am from Kansas City suburbs. Spent most of my life there. For 40% of the last twelve years I have also lived in Chicago during the week for business.
It is a great business town. Good incomes, vibrant city in the urban area an north side. If I was a young single buy looking for the best place to make money in a variety of fields, I would consider it.
To live with a family, I would choose a suburb of any town before the urban setting.
Young women like Chicago. But it has a lot of danger and a lot of young women are targets or a certain percentage of the males in a large city like that.
When I left NYC for Chicago 32 years ago, I felt like I returned to the USA. Great and varied neighborhoods. Very liveable.
Raised in mid sized city of half a million but the country environ was very close and accessible
The city is now lost to the black race in near totality....extremely dangerous
I now live 30 miles south of a two million metro area southern city which is probably the most livable in Dixie relatively speaking given demographics
I have lived in for long periods of time Manhattan and Miami as well
I have worked in steady or lived briefly in London, Bogota, Rio, São Paulo, Kingston, Caracas, Barranquilla, Belo Horizonte , Hong Kong, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Atlanta, Port au Prince and Freetown SL and Tel Aviv
Crime and pricey rent are often but not always issue
In the USA as a hard right traditionalist I find the vast majority of city dwellers repulsive.
I have nothing in common with them anymore. If you have a large family like I do you get stuck with big private school bills
I would only do it again for a huge salary and some equity
I understand young folks loving it....they are more apathetic to the dissolution of our way of life
The most conservative big city is Dallas but with Hispanic era its fallen to libtards too
I don’t miss it but I do enjoy visiting
New Orleans and Miami and Dallas
It’s personal preference
They were a great band, before Terry Kath died.
I came through there, as my family moved west, in the ‘60’s, when a blizzard blew through. ‘so this is chicago?’
I came through there again, in the 90’s, as I was moving west. Still wasn’t impressed.