urbanSTL

Chicago sucks.

Sorry to be negative which I'm rarely am but Chicago is where it is because of some of the countries worse corruption. When you have 2 governors back 2 back go to 2 prison that tells you all that more.
When your own governor doesn't stay at the state capitol thats all you need to know.
Last i heard Chicago is losing population & i don't see that changing anytime soon.
I've talked to several people who are moving right here to Saint.Louis to get out of Chicago..
Anyways i don't dislike Chicago i think its a great city but i don't like how residents there treat Saint.Louis like its worse than what they have there.
I think Missouri is a beautiful very underrated state.
I couldn't believe Tennessee was #1 though & they recently landed a massive VW plant 2,000 jobs
Where's Missouri in all this?

Let's not kid ourselves. We all love St. Louis for what it is and especially what it could be, but Chicago is everything it could be. It is one America's few truly world-class cities. It is better than St. Louis in virtually every conceivable way (which isn't necessarily a massive knock on St. Louis because it's better than almost every American city in every conceivable way).

It is not without its issues.

But onecity is definitely correct here.

I am in Boston now and it is another great town. It has a lot of the same turn-of-century red brick row houses we have in St. Louis. But It is a very crowded place. Maybe St Louis should bill itself as Boston without the traffic.

jstriebel wrote:Chicago sucks.

Thank you. I can’t get on board with all the Chicago praise.

I live near Chicago and visit the city probably 15 to 20 times a year. I want it to be as great as the boosters make it out to be. I want to fall in love with it the way I’ve fallen in love with cities like New York, Boston, Philly, DC, San Francisco, New Orleans, and even St. Louis, and Louisville. I’m sort of stuck living where I am, so it would be wonderful if Chicago was really as “world class” as it is so often proclaimed to be by locals. I’ll even be the first to admit that downtown is very impressive. The street level activity, retail, and vibrancy is something I’d kill to see in St. Louis. I love the pre-war skyscrapers and can appreciate a lot of the mid-century stuff like the Daley Center and the Hancock. However, so much of the new development seems pretty soulless and sterile from the ground level and I just can’t get into it. It may just be that I’m not a skyscraper guy. The modern ones, in particular, just aren’t what excites me about cities. I much more enjoy the human-scaled elements and history that can be found in old storefronts, houses, and apartment buildings. These are the areas where I find Chicago to be decidedly mediocre. The housing stock is overly dominated by bungalows and uninteresting frame houses. The streets are overly wide and even the neighborhoods with the best housing stock like Lincoln Park or Old Town feel wedged between major arteries and for me lack the quiet intimacy of other great historic urban neighborhoods elsewhere.

I guess the question I end up asking myself every time I’m in Chicago is where’s the Park Slope, Fort Greene, Society Hill, North End, French Quarter, or ***** Soulard? I’ve yet to find a part of Chicago that offers those sort of urban environments; the types of places that attracted me to cities in the first place.

I don’t think I’m unique in my tastes either. This is why I’m bullish on St. Louis. I think the city can capitalize on its own unique aesthetic to draw a contrast with Chicago and continue to build a cool enclave of people with different (better?) taste in city living.
Oh, and the weather sucks too. I’ve never minded the heat, so mild summers don’t mean much to me. They’re certainly not worth a winter that feels like it lasts from November to May in a good year.

I get it. Chicago is the big city of the Midwest and people from this region who want that large-scale urban lifestyle while remaining close to home are going to be drawn there. However, for people seeking great big-city urban living, I can’t see Chicago as anything more than a regional draw because anyone without that local attachment would prefer the east coast anyway.

Nice video on MTV about young artists in STL:

Artists Come Together To Revitalize St Louis
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/1063085/ ... ouis.jhtml

I would much rather St. Louis aspire to be Washington DC than Chicago. Chicago has some flashy parts but overall its just bland. DC and Boston both blow it out of the water IMHO. Man I love DC...

Chicago was fun (and expensive) to visit. It's too big of a city for my tastes.

From what I've seen and heard on the news, Chicago has some neighborhoods that are as bad as any other city. They're better at hiding it. They keep their crime states off of the lists and they tout their touristy areas more than anywhere else.

I have nothing against Chicago, but I also think it's got its problems.

One thing St. Louis and DC do have in common is that so many attractions are free. Everything in Chicago is like $20/person.

^ That's definitely true. I have developed a habit of checking the Chicago Tribune each morning, and almost every other day the headline is about multiple shootings. However, most families visiting Chicago don't seem to think twice about safety, while a trip to St. Louis would more likely bring about a conversation about crime.

urban_dilettante wrote:I would much rather St. Louis aspire to be Washington DC than Chicago. Chicago has some flashy parts but overall its just bland. DC and Boston both blow it out of the water IMHO. Man I love DC...

Agree with you about Boston, but I cannot stand D.C. In my experience the people there are unbelievably rude and/or insufferable one-uppers with respect to their own careers or who they know politically.

I liked D. C. We didn't have any problem with rude people. The only downside is that while we were in D.C. the Washington Monument was closed and the reflecting pool was drained. The attractions were really cool, though, and most were free. We stayed in Arlington and took the train everywhere.

Greatest St. Louis wrote:

urban_dilettante wrote:I would much rather St. Louis aspire to be Washington DC than Chicago. Chicago has some flashy parts but overall its just bland. DC and Boston both blow it out of the water IMHO. Man I love DC...

Agree with you about Boston, but I cannot stand D.C. In my experience the people there are unbelievably rude and/or insufferable one-uppers with respect to their own careers or who they know politically.

I should clarify that I think St. Louis should aspire to be DC in terms of built environment/walkability/transit. Walking around in DC is just a pleasure. I agree the culture is pretty stuffy though (for obvious reasons), which is why I don't think I could live there.

Speaking of D.C.

The 7 Ugliest Government Buildings In Washington, D.C.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/th ... washington

Wow, just horrible.

Reminds me of a few buildings at Missouri State U from the same era.

gary kreie wrote:Maybe St Louis should bill itself as Boston without the traffic.

STL definitely should. Especially with the growth of Cortex.

Large cities with high homicide rates that are also losing ground demographically include St. Louis, Montgomery, and Jackson. (All of which have higher homicide rates than Chicago, by the way).

http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/07/th ... ne/374484/

hebeters2 wrote:Large cities with high homicide rates that are also losing ground demographically include St. Louis, Montgomery, and Jackson. (All of which have higher homicide rates than Chicago, by the way).

http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/07/th ... ne/374484/

i think we may have a Chicagoan in our midsts. didn't i read a very similar comment on another forum recently? it's been fun watching Chicago boosters squirm and attempt to deflect the bad press the city's been getting lately. Lots of finger-pointing (at other cities).

I think the bad press Chicago is getting is a bit overblown.

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The commercial part of the neighborhood, called Central West End, is home to bistros, wine and whiskey bars, and assorted specialty shops, many opened within the past several years. Also in the neighborhood is the 1920s Chase Park Plaza Hotel, which also houses restaurants and a movie theater.

continue reading here
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/great ... stinations

downtown2007 wrote:I think the bad press Chicago is getting is a bit overblown.

yeah, bad press usually is. St. Louisans should know.