I’ve lived and worked in both Chicago and Milwaukee. Now I live in Knoxville, TN. Milwaukee and Knoxville are both great places to live. Chicago sucks.
Metro areas aren’t for me. I live in a small city of 10,000 and that suits me fine. I enjoy visiting Milwaukee occasionally, still have relatives not far from there out in the country. Even have a nephew in Chicago on the near-north side. But I’ll not go back there. I’ll see him when he returns home for visits.