Chicago One of America's most Miserable Cities

Yahoo Real Estate ^ | 02-06-09 | Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes.com

[boomop1]

It should be better since the head moron left.

[blondee123]

Not to mention, slums, dirty filthy sidewalks, streets, downtown bums laying in doorways, bums begging for money for booze, crime rampant.

I have lived 50 miles south my entire life & rarely go to Chicago for anything!!! It's a PIT!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Don’t you mean “the gooch” ? =8-0

[B-Chan]

How was Chicago able to lure Boeing from Seattle over Dallas?

Maybe they had something special to offer.

Or perhaps it was the windy blow.

Better still, the yummy pizza,

That many feel too rich in dough.

Illinois, the Land of Lincoln,

Endless towers, toddlin' town

Safeguard always thy renown.

[BlessedBeGod]

How can this be? This is where The Messiah is from!

[Coyote Choir]

Well, thought I'd jump in and say personally, I loved Chicago back when we would visit our daughter during the four years she attended the U. of C.. I do realize that Hyde Park is especially well patrolled, due in part to the presence of the university; I never felt endangered as an older woman while we were out and about in the city (at least when we were not flying down a highway in an airport shuttle van), although of course I always worried and prayed about my daughter's safety. She was fine, it turned out; she has a lot of common sense, and she spent most of her time studying (The unofficial motto of her school was something like “The University of Chicago: the place where fun comes to die”) - the students traditionally work very hard there. There are wealthy areas in Hyde Park, but there are also many modest apartments and highrises, and there is a real mix of people. I loved being able to walk everywhere in Hyde Park down tree lined streets and being able to catch a bus and ride on down a few blocks further or go on across the city. I loved the great Chicago area museums, especially the Institute of Art downtown, the small restaurants, the whole rich, rough-edged urban flavor, and the park running along the lake shore. We are not wealthy people, especially after seeing our two children graduate from college - we are just a family from Oklahoma - but I just didn't want all of the posts to be uniformly negative about Chicago. It is a great city with a distinct, rough and tumble personality all of its own. And you can visit Chicago and stay in Hyde Park without spending a vast fortune, too (unless you just want to). Just go when it is warm.

[jobim]

Chicago was a great place to grow up in the 50s & 60s. It was a wonderful town. But success and prosperity brought it liberal yuppiedom: the neighborhoods gentrified, the families moved, the DINK folk came in. It went Blue, Blue, Blue. Prosperity also, on a miniature scale, destroyed Green Bay the same way.

[festus]

I dunno I liked Chicagoland. I’d still be there but other family matters drew me away.

[ErnBatavia]

Meanwhile, citizens of Philadelphia, New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, Camden, Newark, etc. and etc. beg to differ.

New York City...Manhattan especially.......Sh*thole capital of all the world; makes Bombay (er, Mumbai) look clean by comparison.

(Just give a half hour to viewing "Cash Cab", and you'll agree with me....if you can turn down the quiz show and just look out the taxi's window)

[PhilCollins]

I live in a Chicago suburb, and I can see why the city is miserable. The city has a high violent crime rate, many high city sales taxes, and many politicians (almost all Democrats) who are being investigated by the U.S. attorney, for accepting bribes.

[Impy]

Former White Sox player Tadahito Iguchi was called Gooch. Given how he played at the end of his tenure here.......lol.

[x]

People live in cities because they like the opportunities there.

You can look back over pretty much the whole history of Chicago and find the same problems -- corrupt politicians, crime, mobsters, slums, labor violence, unrest, bad smells, and eyesores -- but people go on living there and moving there because they like the energy and variety. Unfortunately for the city, a lot of them move on to New York or the West Coast, but I doubt Chicago's on the verge of collapse now.

I was leafing through a recent book, The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age. If you're from the city, you'd like the book, but it's less interesting than I thought it would be. The Chicagoan was basically an imitation New Yorker put out in Chi-town during the 1920s.

Still, it does convey the excitement of that time and place. There was a certain romance about those days, when "everyone who was anyone" changed trains in Chicago and maybe stayed around for a while. What Chicago was able to do in one century starting from open swamp and prairie was certainly impressive, and I wouldn't count Chicago -- or urban America -- out now.