Are people from Chicago nice like the rest of the Midwest? (friendly, denominational)

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

You are right about Minneapolis. I wasn't suggesting it was conservative. But that in general many states/cities/regions that are regarded as friendly often lean a little to the right.

I would say that it's the divide that comes with the whole Midwestern stereotype. The rest of the country thinks we're nice and polite, but the reality can be somewhat different when you visit any of the large cities in the region.

It seems most have rural small towns in mind, rather than Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, etc. Certainly not Chicago.

But by and large they live in totally different neighborhoods. I mean does Edison Park residents (natives) really hang out with Lincoln park residents (transplants)? I mean those are the more opposite end of the spectrum - you do have places that are maybe a bit more mixed (say Lincoln Square) The fact that Chicago is so neighborhood focused, where many neighborhoods have a distinct type of person, that leads to maintaining specific ties.

This can be said about most cities that receive large influxes of transplants though. There's always going to be neighborhoods that are off the beaten path for transplants which are more so made up of natives. It doesn't mean all the locals in those places are sitting there cursing the names of all the transplants coming into the city.

I personally have a local friends who grew up in Beverly, Jefferson Park, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, and Belmont Cragin, for example. I have others who spent part of their childhoods in the city before moving to the suburbs as well.

Also upscale, vibrant transplants neighborhoods vary quite a bit too. Lincoln Park/Lakeview has more of that "Midwestern Big Ten graduate" feel, whereas Gold Coast/River North/Mag Mile feel a little more truly cosmopolitan the way famous glamorous neighborhoods in NYC/LA/SF would.

These neighborhoods can subdivide as well. Lincoln Park isn't exclusively recent Big 10 bros. There are cheap apartments, especially studios near DePaul, but the new bro transplants can't afford those multi million dollar homes, for example. In Lakeview, Boystown and Wrigleyville are night and day in comparison to each other.

Uptown has also been sliced and diced like a turkey at this point, but that has more to do with ever increasing gentrification in the neighborhood.

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

Good observation. Though I would say that there are few if any native Chicagoans who lean even slightly to the right. Chicago is big blue my friend. Even the racist Whites like the South Side Irish (by stereotypes) are the old UAW types. Blue Dog. But not conservative. Chicago has never really had a conservative reputation. Even the Midwest transplants who move here are left leaning and sought to escape their conservative upbringing in the corn belt.

In my 7 years living in Chicago, I have met exactly one person who moved to Chicago from the middle of nowhere. Everyone else is from another large Midwestern city or one of those cities' suburbs. Only a few of them moved to "escape their conservative upbringing," and that included someone from a suburb of Cincinnati and another couple of people from Indiana outside of Indianapolis.

Most moved to Chicago due to its size, job opportunities, and urban lifestyle.

Actually, I take my first comment back. I just remembered I do know another guy who moved to Chicago who was originally from the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. He thought Milwaukee was too small, so he moved to Chicago after graduating Marquette. So I know two people who moved to Chicago who were originally from small towns.

[xsboost]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

I just remembered I do know another guy who moved to Chicago who was originally from the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. He thought Milwaukee was too small, so he moved to Chicago after graduating Marquette.

Jimmy Butler?

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

In my 7 years living in Chicago, I have met exactly one person who moved to Chicago from the middle of nowhere. Everyone else is from another large Midwestern city or one of those cities' suburbs. Only a few of them moved to "escape their conservative upbringing," and that included someone from a suburb of Cincinnati and another couple of people from Indiana outside of Indianapolis.

Most moved to Chicago due to its size, job opportunities, and urban lifestyle.

Actually, I take my first comment back. I just remembered I do know another guy who moved to Chicago who was originally from the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. He thought Milwaukee was too small, so he moved to Chicago after graduating Marquette. So I know two people who moved to Chicago who were originally from small towns.

Well I don't mean to say their primary reason for leaving is to escape conservatism. But a lot of them sure do have conservative backgrounds despite not being conservative themselves.

[reppin_the_847]

Originally Posted by xsboost

jimmy butler?

lol!

[artillery77]

Originally Posted by Happiness-is-close

I have always found Chicagoans to be rude. They have a particularly bad rep on the west coast of Florida. I always hear people saying how nice they are so maybe Florida just gets the bad ones. I can say of the last two Chicagoans I met (one a co-worker, another a date) they were both rude people.

Guys, that's just rude. Has Happiness really gone this far in life before someone's let her in on how the rest of the world views Florida?

Drew Curtis' FARK.com

Chicago's a very friendly town, but it's also a town where people doing dumb things can get hurt. If you want to meet people, you go to a bar or an open outing, you don't walk up to random strangers on the street, they'll think you're homeless and begging.

[Master Jay]

I am from Milwaukee and visit Chicago regularly. I consider Chicagoans to be extremely friendly and welcoming. i never felt like an outsider.

[TBideon]

All cities are the same composed of nice people, jerks and everyone in between. I'd say transplants are a little nicer and the criminal types are pretty awful just like everywhere else.

[golgi1]

Chicago sustains a variety of white evangelical / Baptist type megachurches whose denominational nationwide populations are collectively known to be the most consistently conservative religious group in the U.S.

Chicago can't be that sterile of conservatism if these Churches thrive here.

In contrast, this type of church doesn't exist in the liberal cities of the northeast to any degree worth noting. I don't believe that the white populations of Philadelphia, New York, or Boston would sustain them.

I'm not saying that these voters aren't drowned-out by the rest of Chicago's population; I'm only noting that there does seem to exist a socially organized conservative population, with significant numbers, as a political sub-current in the area.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by golgi1

Chicago sustains a variety of white evangelical / Baptist type megachurches whose denominational nationwide populations are collectively known to be the most consistently conservative religious group in the U.S.

Chicago can't be that sterile of conservatism if these Churches thrive here.

In contrast, this type of church doesn't exist in the liberal cities of the northeast to any degree worth noting. I don't believe that the white populations of Philadelphia, New York, or Boston would sustain them.

I'm not saying that these voters aren't drowned-out by the rest of Chicago's population; I'm only noting that there does seem to exist a socially organized conservative population, with significant numbers, as a political sub-current in the area.

Ummm...Mars Hill church led by Mark Driscoll was thriving in Seattle (arguably more White liberal than any city you listed). I wouldn't say having a megachurch within a metro is any indication of a mainstream tolerance of such beliefs.

If you poll the majority of Chicago natives, religion has little to no significance in their life. If it does, it is usually Catholicism.

Also, the transplants from more conservative regions also will affect it I believe, something which Philly and New York don't have much of. There isn't a large Lower Midwest pull that the Northeast has whatsoever.

Just look at the stats of native born Chicagoans of European descent. Evangelical types are not really a significant part of our framework (Catholics outnumber Protestants by almost 3 to 1). However with Moody being based here as well as Wheaton College, many people not from the Chicagoland area do relocate here for studying in these places.

Unlike the core Northeast cities, Chicago is surrounded by evangelical conservatism in most directions (not so much North but downstate Illinois and rural Indiana are bastions of it). The higher percentage of German ancestry in the Midwest (a more Protestant group) contrasts that to the Catholic Italians and Irish of the Northeast. In that way Chicago also is more susceptible to that cultural difference. Germans, being a Midwest staple ethnic group (the largest) create a sharp divide to the Mediterranean and Irish groups of the Northeast.

So you're somewhat onto something here.