In defense of Mr. Pernicious (Jason Fried) and Big Shoulders (Chicago)

Boeing corporate moved to Chicago in '01, but its aerospace engineering and manufacturing teams did not. The heart of that company is still on the west coast.

It is so. much. better. than other US cities, though!

Seriously, though:

(1) People either love or hate NYC, and they love or hate SoCal. They love or don't care about Chicago. It's a biased signal.

(2) Chicago is the closest thing in the US you can get to NYC if you want "major urban center", "top population center", and can't actually deal with NYC. That's me. I can't deal with NYC, but I appreciate what everyone else does in NYC, and Chicago has 80% of that. This would be "just another thing people who like Chicago say about Chicago" except that "proximity to the NYC experience" is a huge deal for city lovers.

(3) People, especially tech people, underappreciate just how small San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Portland, and even Greater Boston are. I say that not to put Chicago on a level above them, but instead to note that those cities have fewer boosters just statistically.

(4) That said, most of the "Chicago is amazing" stuff comes out in conversations with NYC-ers and SF-ers, and we tend to concede that, say, Portland is a nice place to live too.

Oh, and by the way? We didn't bring Chicago into this. That original douchey blog post did, with its commentary about how everyone in the third largest metro area in the country "works for or knows someone who works for the parks district". But now you know why 'tptacek thinks Chicagoans act like that.

This begins to remind me of a Mike Royko column written in 1989, in which he answers criticism of Chicago by not one but two SF columnists: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19891007&...

I do like Chicago (if one must be in cities, and apparently it is a requirement). I say this as a transplant from growing up 6 miles outside of a town of 6000. I would think that most Chicagoans think that would suck, but then most people would.

I do like San Francisco as well. And Portland.

The size of Chicago is missed by many, in particular, the size of the tech community. At one point, I tallied over 100 consulting (or more properly contracting) firms servicing the likes of Motorola, Allstate, Sears, Standard Oil, and the like. If you want to measure sophistication, there are more jobs in certain areas of the financial sector than in any other city. There is likely a broader range of technical talent as well.

But I just don't get this park district thing.

As I said in my post, I thought Scott's post was great until he went after Chicago. I agree it's a Chicago thing. We're a proud folk. We get angry, but I've never seen a post from Chicago bashing other places. It's clear Portland, Seattle, New York, Austin, and "the bay area" (really all cities) have great things going for them. Why is it we seem to be the city to bash? I'm sore, sure, but this has been going in for a long time. In a post in 2007 I highlighted a presentation series, my partner Lance was giving to overcome the perception that real art doesn't happen here. http://spill.tanagram.com/2007/03/28/the-city-that-works/ I mean we have 5+ colleges here -one of them Ivy league - and still it seems that nothing good comes from Chicago? Scott Wilson, UIC grad and amazing industrial designer is based here but he has a Portland office for credibility (he would say that flat out). His company is famous for the Microsoft Kin, Tons of XBOX stuff, Nike plus, and the mythical "courier." http://www.MNML.com. Did you know that? 

This, to me, isn't a penis waving contest. It's a brilliant neglected child learning to tell the world that she matters. 

Why are you glad you don't live here? Just curious.