Chicago
Pros: Summers on the lake, on the river, in endless parks, street festivals, rooftops, and courtyards make you wonder why you would ever want to live somewhere else.
Cons: Winters inevitably remind you of the answer to the above question.
Pros: Summers on the lake, on the river, in endless parks, street festivals, rooftops, and courtyards make you wonder why you would ever want to live somewhere else.
Cons: Winters inevitably remind you of the answer to the above question.
Cons: it's the great flatness - you have to drive for hours to see hills. Tech industry is ok but very b2b and fintech focused and not a lot of consumer or entertainment stuff. Also as a very liberal city it's a favorite target of culture warrior types.
Tie: winter. Yeah, it gets cold and snowy. But also, it's "just weather". It's the same every year and people deal with it pretty easily.
I've only visited Chicago once. It was nice, but I'd never thought architecture would be a selling point. Do you have examples of where I should look, the next time I'm there?
public transit isn't bad but also isn't great and can be rough at times. also necessitates walking in said bad weather.
> Can't you hunker down and get everything delivered to reduce outdoor time?
COVIDs over bro. what's the point of living in a city if you're hunkered? move to a far flung burb and become a hermit.
Hard to get a variety of delivery options there or great internet! :)
If it were colder there would be more sun and snow instead of grey and slush.
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... in the summer. After about the end of September, until about the middle of April, you can keep it. I just can't do those winters. I spent a big chunk of winter in, aaah, 2014, 2015 (one or the other) in Naperville just west of Chicago and it was brutal.[1] :-(
[1]: But still not as bad as the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. Edina, MN is not a place you want to be at in the winter, IMO.
I disagree though. MN is colder but less windy so you get those crisp calm, blue sky winter days in Jan-Feb that make the winter more survivable. But you gotta be ok with the cold.
That all said, I’m now in central Indiana and prefer the milder climate (than both those places!).
> "conservative media's portrayal of Chicago as a crime-ridden city"
Maybe check police crime reports [1] of your city before going after the conservative media. There's gun related violence every week in Chicago and often there are multiple homicides on a single weekend. I understand it's a big city, but it's still a big problem. Lincoln Park is indeed nice and safe and parts of the loop are safe cause they are very touristy with heavy police presence. But there are many neighborhoods that are not that lucky. Also, the public school system in the city has major problems. In one year when I lived there there were 21 kids from the public school system around the city who got murdered in gang related shootings.
[1] https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_C...
* I just picked the city wide report for the last week. 7 murders. last year same period 14 murders. 2023 numbers seem better than 2022 but still. For comparison, my city of about 110K people has 1-2 murders on average per year.
I think this is probably the most important point. Much of the crime is concentrated in the city's far west and far south sides, where I generally don't go. These stats are old, but the map is roughly correct and shows the disparity I'm talking about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago#/media/File:2...
The effect is that most of the city is safe, but people on the far south side are impacted by crime. Not to defend the situation—I of course wish that all of Chicago was safe and want to see our city make progress on that. Just trying to provide nuance.