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.
Also, pros: world-class architecture, fun music scene, great museums and of course The Art Institute, top universities and everything that comes with that, great restaurants from every cuisine under the sun, very immigrant-friendly city, lovely tree-lined streets with block parties, I could go on and on. Oh, and living is affordable and people are Midwest Nice.
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.
As a life long Chicagoan I really think you're underselling how bad the winter is. Combined with the flatness it means that most people just don't spend any time at all outside december-april. I think this is why Chicago has such a strong drinking culture, there's just not much else to do in the winter, certainly not 5 months worth of stuff.
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?
What's so bad about winters? You don't drive in chicago unless you want to, so just the walks? Can't you hunker down and get everything delivered to reduce outdoor time? I assume building heating is not an issue.
I love Chicago. One of my favorite cities in the entire US.
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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.
Edina= “every day I need attention”, if I recall from growing up near there.
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!).
Have you spent much time in Chicago? I've lived here in Lincoln Park and the loop (downtown) and haven't had any issues with crime, unless you count people smoking on the CTA train. Obviously it's not perfect, but conservative media's portrayal of Chicago as a crime-ridden city doesn't match my experience at all.
> "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.
* 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.
> But there are many neighborhoods that are not that lucky
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:
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.
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.