“Everything looks great when you photoshop the hell out of it. So to speak.”
You don’t have to photoshop Chicago for it to look great. It is a grand and great city all on its own. A beautiful city, with a stunning lakefront, where the Lake Michigan waters glisten in the sun during the summer months and the sailboats waft to and fro. It is a city with a wonderful historical past, and nooks and crannies galore to explore (as long as you don’t veer off into a bad neighborhood). The natives know where to go and where not to go. Like in any major city throughout the world, you have to be aware of your surroundings. That notwithstanding, Chicago is a feast for the eyes and senses.
You can eat yourself silly in the city, where ethnic neighborhoods, each with their own cuisine, abound. There are festivals galore, both local and citywide. Old neighborhood churches of great beauty all over the place. Outstanding museums, excellent universities, quaint bookstores, a gold coast where the rich and famous and the very ordinary parade down the avenues, bags overflowing with purchases from stores large and small, but unique. People are midwestern friendly, not like in New York whose inhabitants sport an east coast attitude. The weather sucks in the winter, but you can’t have everything. And even winter has its own beauty when the grand boulevards and smaller side streets are coated in snow.
Chicago ain’t no Detroit, and never will be. Too strong a tax base, too diverse of a population, too many wealthy neighborhoods, too vibrant a downtown area, too cosmopolitan, too great to ever end up in the dumpster. Chicago gets a bad name because of crime that flares up in certain primarily south side neighborhoods during the hot summer months (mostly gang warfare). The other reason it gets a bad name is because of the Obama connection. How unfortunate that the city has to be smeared unnecessarily because of Obama and his Chicago cronies, a thugacracy born out of the city’s Democratic machine. You can say what you want, but when the city was ruled by the Daley’s, both the old man and then his son, the city basically worked. Now with Emanuel, and his Obama connected cronies like David Axelrod, not so much. Be careful to paint Chicago with a broad brush because of the taint of Obama. Chicago is a grand old city, and will outlast even Obama and his regime.
I love this city of broad shoulders, born as a capitalist’s dream, built by blue collar sweat and energy, further developed and beautified by titans of industry at the turn of the century. It is the home of great sports teams such as the Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks, has perhaps some of the greatest architecture of any city in the U.S., has been a politician’s playground throughout the years, a city riddled with great character actors of history, wonderful theater, outstanding hospitals and research centers, and is right up there as one of the world’s most fascinating and beautiful cities. What’s not to like? Oh, that’s right, Obama.
Stunning it is. Lake Michigan shines diamonds.
flaglady47, you have stated it beautifully. I agree with everything you said. I love my hometown, always will. Warts and all, Chicago has so much going for it.
Well said.
Very well said.
Great town, Chicago.
Sure, there are neighborhoods you need to steer clear of but that's true of any large city. My rule of thumb is that when you start seeing check-cashing joints, pawn shops and metal bars on windows of homes, it's time to reverse direction.
We were last in Chicago during the summer and we spent a week checking out Second City, some museums, a Cubs game and the huge ferris wheel on Navy Pier as well as a cruise in Lake Michigan. In between, some of the best deep-dish pizza and steaks I've ever had.
All of those things were true of detroit too. Then years of democrat rule destroyed the place. The only thing chicago has going for it is inertia. But democrat rule will one day overwhelm that too and then chicago will be detroit.