On our way out to Nebraska we decided to spend a couple of days in Chicago, a city I lived in for two of the richest years of my life yet haven't seen for 16 years. Growing up in the Midwest it loomed large in my imagination, especially at a time when several beloved movies of my generation from The Blues Brothers to Ferris Bueller's Day Off were set there. When I finally got to visit in high school and in college, I fell in love. Living in Chicago only deepened that love, and when I was a grad student at the University of Illinois after moving out of Chicago, I made the trek up interstate 57 as often as I could.
After that, a strange thing happened: I spurned Chicago for New York City, the place I worked for the past thirteen years. I used to resent the condescending attitude of New Yorkers to "the second city" when I lived in the Midwest, but I slowly began to adopt it myself. Today I am reproaching myself for this, since I have had an absolutely delightful day here. My children had never been before, and they absolutely LOVE it. They have called it "New York but clean" and "New York but chill." While Chicago has a tough spikiness, it lacks the overbearing neuroses that hang in the air in the Big Apple. As I get older my tolerance for managing other people's anxieties has frayed to the breaking point. People in New York desperately need to get a dose of Midwestern reserve.
Today has included some old stomping grounds, as well as things I never did when I lived here. On the former count, we spent the morning in Hyde Park and on the campus of the University of Chicago, where I excitedly pointed out locations of major and minor events in my young life. On the latter count, we went to the top of the Hancock Building (I know it's not called that anymore, but whatever) and took at architectural history boat tour on the river. Both let me see a city I thought I knew with new eyes and appreciation. It also didn't hurt that in between we ate Chicago-style dogs from Devil Dawgs.
For most part I have been quietly pleased with how the city has matured since I lived here from 1998-2000. Hyde Park in particular feels safer and more economically stable, as do the surrounding neighborhoods. Driving up Stony Island I marveled at all the new buildings and flourishing businesses. The experience really shows how much all the Fox News propaganda about Chicago is lying. Yes the city has plenty of problems, but it has figured some things out that its supposedly superior cousin New York could learn from. Putting trash in alleyway bins is probably better than dumping it on the street, for example. Trees can, you know, shade the sidewalk in the summertime. These facts and the Fox propaganda bullshit are good examples of how you shouldn't always believe what you hear.
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