Cities (large) most similar to Chicago (Bradley, Oregon: low income, best city, apartment)

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

When times are good, it's easier to see the comparison of Chicago to cities of this caliber. From the late 90s through 2005, you could really feel the energy buzzing in Chicago--and there was a tremendous sense of optimism. But when the economy is in the dumps and winter is just starting to set in, people get negative and tend to compare Chicago to the "rust belt". Why? Because Chicago is a bi-polar city with one foot in the vibrant "creative class" San Francisco camp and one foot in the post-industrial Cleveland and Pittsburgh rust belt. People forget that New York, San Francisco, and Boston once had larger working-class populations, higher crime, and more significant urban decay. Heck, Seattle was seen as a dying lumber town in the 1970s (remember the phrase "Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn off the lights?"). Perceptions can change over time.

A lot of people do not realize how gritty SF is(my sister lives in Marin). Their murder rate is something like 13 per 100k to our 16. They have a higher property crime rate too. So in that sense i can sense the similarities. Further more a large portion of sf (south east) is unseen by most tourists and really gritty. Than there is Oakland across the bay, that city and its neighbor richmond have not had a year this decade where they have not been on the FBI's 10 highest crime cities list.

A lot of people like to pretend the bay area is some utopia but it really isnt, and in many ways it is worse in the sense that middle income people can not make headway less they do condo living or the exurbs.

But I've never seen the similarity at all between the two cities really. Chicago has much more character as its native born residents have not been entirely pushed out/fled.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by LakeShoreSoxGo

A lot of people do not realize how gritty SF is(my sister lives in Marin). Their murder rate is something like 13 per 100k to our 16. They have a higher property crime rate too. So in that sense i can sense the similarities. Further more a large portion of sf (south east) is unseen by most tourists and really gritty. Than there is Oakland across the bay, that city and its neighbor richmond have not had a year this decade where they have not been on the FBI's 10 highest crime cities list.

A lot of people like to pretend the bay area is some utopia but it really isnt, and in many ways it is worse in the sense that middle income people can not make headway less they do condo living or the exurbs.

But I've never seen the similarity at all between the two cities really. Chicago has much more character as its native born residents have not been entirely pushed out/fled.

SF is loaded with grit. As you note, south of Market (well today actually south of SoMa) and east of Twin Peaks throughout the entire Mission/Portero/Hunters Point area, grit is a definite factor. And to agree swings westward at the southern end of the city into areas like Ingeside.

And there are plenty of areas in the Bay Area besides these in the city and the parts of Oakland and other sections of the East Bay core that have plenty of grit.

[edsg25]

I have to say, unlike others, I see very little similarity between Chicago and Queens. For one thing, Chicago has a strong, connective grid; Queens was a series of separate villages and towns that came together as the area consolidated into a borough of the new Greater New York. And even today, those Queens areas retain their village/town like character and those names, not New York, remain as part of their addresses.

Many Queens villages grew in the early years of the republic at a time when New York was a city and Brooklyn was a city and they were out of their sphere and not really suburban. Chicago's outer neighbors, even when they were part of places like Hyde Park or Jeff Park and not Chicago were still very Chicago inspired and still part of the grid.

And with that grid comes a solidarity that can make a place outside city limits like Skokie more truly connected to downtown Chicago than many parts of outer but still in city Queens are linked to Manhattan.

[ImaloneJill]

Most of the places I have visited have had a "vacation destination" feel to them and have had an identity of their own-SF, LA, New Orleans, Phoenix, NYC, Miami, Orlando, Savannah, Las Vegas.
I have been to smaller cities that might be more comparable because they are Midwestern or industrial: Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee. To tell you the truth, I don't think any of these cities capture the energy and beauty of our city, either. Cleveland and Detroit are, to me, more industrial and rugged looking, the feel, less refined. St. Louis and Milwaukee are closer to what we have but are more laid back, less frenetic pace.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by ImaloneJill

Most of the places I have visited have had a "vacation destination" feel to them and have had an identity of their own-SF, LA, New Orleans, Phoenix, NYC, Miami, Orlando, Savannah, Las Vegas.
I have been to smaller cities that might be more comparable because they are Midwestern or industrial: Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee. To tell you the truth, I don't think any of these cities capture the energy and beauty of our city, either. Cleveland and Detroit are, to me, more industrial and rugged looking, the feel, less refined. St. Louis and Milwaukee are closer to what we have but are more laid back, less frenetic pace.

I really do see a lot of Chicago/Milwaukee overlap. Chicago's relationship with Milwaukee is unique. It alone among cities literally shares space with us, is in our backyard, and even goes as far as creating a supermetro with us. Milwaukee is even oriented the same way Chicago is with the lake to the east and downtown occupying the middle of the lakefront shoreline.

I like the industrial, rugged look you speak of, far more in Cleveland than in Detroit. In Cleveland it comes across as grit; in Detroit as decline. Yet Detroit, more than any of those midwestern cities, comes across with a feeling of true old time greatness that harkens to its era when it did share far more attributes with Chicago in muscular greatness and energy; unfortunately it never had Chicago's white collar and cultural roots or Chicago's public transportation system.

St. Louis has a special character in the midwest. Of all our cities, none exudes the historical feel of St. Louis. St. Louis, of course, suffered from a great decline. The civil war killed north/south Mississippi River traffic and it took a huge hit from the rise of its rival, Chicago, to grab the east-west transcontinental rail traffic and replace it as the city in the heartland. Its secession from St. Louis Co. is legendary in landlocking it and literally created the wealth in county over city.

Without those ills, and if StL could have thrived, I think it would have been a midwestern version of Boston to a degree in its ability to use historical charm.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Avengerfire

I will try to find it.

Maybe it is this one:

Row houses and cluster houses; an international survey.
Author: Hoffmann, Hubert, 1904-1999.
New York, Praeger [1967]

No, this book was only about Chicago housing types, and seemed to be published by some community group or something. It had a very local flavor to it, and seemed to be published by a small company. I really wish I could find it today!

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by What'sthenameofthistown?

But I'm partial to Baltimore, my hometown, which is also a unique and eccentric city and isn't nearly as segregated (or flat) as Chicago.

Baltimore is basically just as segregated as Chicago. And it offers a lot less hope for its black residents. Chicago has one of the largest black middle class populations found anywhere in the Western world.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by edsg25

I really do see a lot of Chicago/Milwaukee overlap. Chicago's relationship with Milwaukee is unique. It alone among cities literally shares space with us, is in our backyard, and even goes as far as creating a supermetro with us. Milwaukee is even oriented the same way Chicago is with the lake to the east and downtown occupying the middle of the lakefront shoreline.

I lived in Milwaukee for a stint just before moving permanently to Chicago. There's a certain amount of overlap, and the working class populations share a very similar culture. But the neighborhoods in Milwaukee feel very different, and the downtown isn't very vibrant in spite of a lot of revitalization in the last decade. I think the near South Side Hispanic neighborhoods in Milwaukee (Mitchell Street, National Avenue) are the closest thing to a "Chicago feel" you'll find there.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I lived in Milwaukee for a stint just before moving permanently to Chicago. There's a certain amount of overlap, and the working class populations share a very similar culture. But the neighborhoods in Milwaukee feel very different, and the downtown isn't very vibrant in spite of a lot of revitalization in the last decade. I think the near South Side Hispanic neighborhoods in Milwaukee (Mitchell Street, National Avenue) are the closest thing to a "Chicago feel" you'll find there.

the overlap, of course, is limited by the vast difference in size between the two. vibrant definitely is not a word for DT Milw. On the other hand, it is a pleasant place and, on a smaller scale, draws strength from its lakefront location.

i'm of the belief that there is no better waterfront setting for an American city than the Great Lakes. Only the Great Lakes can provide the open water location for a downtown. None of our coastal cities can do this since oceans require sheltered land. Thus you can be in the core of New York, Boston, Miami, New Orleans, San Diego, LA, or San Francisco and peer out to open sea. And in DT LA, you won't even be close to it.

Only Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Buffalo allow such a setting and only Chicago and Milwaukee turned that setting into something spectacular in the way they have developed their lakefronts.

And that very lakefront gives Milwaukee another similarity to Chicago: a string of high rise condos that line the northern portion of each city's lakefront, behind both beach and park in both cases (although Chicago does it pancake like and Milwaukee on bluffs that rise above the shore).

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by edsg25

And that very lakefront gives Milwaukee another similarity to Chicago: a string of high rise condos that line the northern portion of each city's lakefront, behind both beach and park in both cases (although Chicago does it pancake like and Milwaukee on bluffs that rise above the shore).

Although the Chicago area has bluffs that rise above the shore too, in the north shore suburbs north of Evanston.