Illinois has a population of somewhere north of 12.58M. About 5.23M live in Cook County (Chicago county). Of the remaining 7.35M, about 3.3M live in the counties with significant suburban...
Illinois has a population of somewhere north of 12.58M. About 5.23M live in Cook County (Chicago county). Of the remaining 7.35M, about 3.3M live in the counties with significant suburban populations. Even if you exclude Cook County from the decision, almost half of the remaining population lives in areas directly dependent on Chicago, so you can see how this would be dead in the water just by population alone. Then when you consider how downstate Illinois is only functional due to tax revenue from Chicagoland, you can see that this is just more idiotic posturing, but it does reflect real sentiments of downstate citizens.
It's insane the ridiculous things that I hear about Chicago from all these country boys who must only watch Fox News (although they swear they get their information from all kinds of sources despite having never heard that Chicago is safe to visit? Like they legitimately believe they would be in danger visiting Chicago even though they're totally fine with dropping by St Louis every weekend). It's especially telling that they think the part of the state that refers to itself as "Chicagoland" would side with the empty cornfields against the only reason any of us live here.
It's wilder to hear all the anti-chicago sentiment from actual politicians who know better. I lived in STL for a few years and so I actually like it better than Chicago but I have family that live...
It's wilder to hear all the anti-chicago sentiment from actual politicians who know better.
I lived in STL for a few years and so I actually like it better than Chicago but I have family that live in the city and not the suburbs and other than the utter lack of accessibility, it's a good place to live for them.
I'm an actual "downstate" resident and while this sentiment exists it's not really "real". Most people with those views IMO would not vote for this if they thought it would happen. I know more people now that visit "the city" regularly. But even before that was my peer group, most people think Chicago has violence and doesn't understand anything south of I-80.
And the average person doesn't know real things about where they don't live. But it ignores the number of transplants back and forth all the time.
Just to weigh in on this with my own personal experience, having lived in Chicago proper for 10 years, it really felt like it was not if you'd be a victim of a crime, but when. I'm very liberal,...
Just to weigh in on this with my own personal experience, having lived in Chicago proper for 10 years, it really felt like it was not if you'd be a victim of a crime, but when. I'm very liberal, but I also knew many people who had experienced a crime. Personally, we had our garage robbed. Thankfully, we never kept anything valuable in the garage, but our upstairs neighbors had a bunch of A/V stuff stolen. Worse than that, my partner had someone pull up to them in the late afternoon while they were walking home from work in a nice neighborhood, pull out a gun, and shoot at them. When we went to the police, they acted like we were wasting their time. They did send a detective out to talk to us, but that was it. I guess that's about all they could do. The person was later caught because they had actually done this many times, and they happened to do it once to an off-duty cop. That was the turning point for us, I think, that eventually lead to us leaving.
I really did enjoy my time in Chicago, but I've got no desire to move back. When we do go back to visit family, it feels like things are sliding downward. It sucks seeing tent-cities of homeless in places they were never camping before. I'm not trying to argue with statistics, but I have intimate personal experiences with Chicago, lots of friends and family there with crime stories as well, and I just don't want to deal with that stuff anymore in my life.
I live in the northern suburbs, we've seen a big uptick in violent crime. People pulling guns out at gas stations and shooting people, hijacking their car in their driveway, significant car and...
I live in the northern suburbs, we've seen a big uptick in violent crime. People pulling guns out at gas stations and shooting people, hijacking their car in their driveway, significant car and garage robberies. It's pretty crazy. I live in a very affluent neighborhood, and not even close to the surrounding neighborhoods around Chicago. I'm an hour out.
I'm in the SF Bay Area, and there's been a similar thing here, but I feel like the big change in the last few years has been a shift in who gets victimized. It's no longer as many crimes of...
I'm in the SF Bay Area, and there's been a similar thing here, but I feel like the big change in the last few years has been a shift in who gets victimized. It's no longer as many crimes of opportunity against other poor people as it is a recognition that it's far more lucrative to steal from people who actually have stuff to steal. With coordination, it's far more profitable to drive for a half hour and steal from a wealthier neighborhood than it is to knock over a tiny corner store down the block, even setting aside the fact that stores don't really have cash anymore.
My in-laws live in Oak Park, and my FIL was almost a car-jacking victim in the last year or two. They tried to block him in at one of those drive through mail boxes (if I'm remembering correctly),...
My in-laws live in Oak Park, and my FIL was almost a car-jacking victim in the last year or two. They tried to block him in at one of those drive through mail boxes (if I'm remembering correctly), but he noticed something was fishy and was able to speed off before he was trapped. My FIL is conservative and bitches about Oak Park and Chicago all the time and we've gotten into many political fights before. During one tiff I basically said, "if you hate it so much here, you should leave... we did. Life is just easier where we are now." He didn't like that, and he personally insulted me. But something I've noticed about my partner's family over the years is that they prefer to complain about things rather than solve them. I can understand wanting to stay where you've always been out of inertia, convenience, family, all that. At a certain point, though, it's just kinda... I don't know, pathetic might be too strong. It's just this sad helplessness or something. I'm really happy and proud that my partner is now in therapy. From what I can interpret, it was a hard upbringing.
When I go back to visit now, I don't drink alcohol or engage too much. Just tell me to move this thing or that, I'll help cook and clean, whatever I've got to do to make it through. No more pointless fights for me.
Can I ask which neighborhood you lived in, just for context? But I agree with you that when, not if, is a thing, but that's true in tons of places all over, and not just in the US. More...
Can I ask which neighborhood you lived in, just for context?
But I agree with you that when, not if, is a thing, but that's true in tons of places all over, and not just in the US. More importantly, there's a big difference between your garage getting robbed and someone being afraid to go to the Mag Mile because of the crime.
We lived in Ukrainian Village, and the shooting happened in Wicker Park. The garage thing just seemed like, "yeah, that happens." The shooting... eh. I agree that the Mag Mile always felt pretty...
We lived in Ukrainian Village, and the shooting happened in Wicker Park. The garage thing just seemed like, "yeah, that happens." The shooting... eh. I agree that the Mag Mile always felt pretty safe. I worked on Michigan Ave for a large portion on my time in Chicago. And yeah, crime happens everywhere. But where I currently live, which is a small vacation town, I never worry about crime anywhere I go.
Or the sentiment of some counties in western Oregon to join Idaho. These kinds of things are all over the place wherever you have urban/rural dichotomies in different sections of a state.
Or the sentiment of some counties in western Oregon to join Idaho. These kinds of things are all over the place wherever you have urban/rural dichotomies in different sections of a state.
I wonder if ADM would be pro or ‘gin? I think it would be an interesting experiment if noone could get hurt. Lots of folks around u-c would be upset. I’m also curious how the collar counties would...
I wonder if ADM would be pro or ‘gin?
I think it would be an interesting experiment if noone could get hurt. Lots of folks around u-c would be upset.
I’m also curious how the collar counties would come down on this.
Still, the real bottom line as @updawg intimated, is there are real polarizations and real feelings connected to them. Somehow things have got to start flowing again.
This is nothing new though. I ran across this mid century gem the other day.
Illinois has a population of somewhere north of 12.58M. About 5.23M live in Cook County (Chicago county). Of the remaining 7.35M, about 3.3M live in the counties with significant suburban populations. Even if you exclude Cook County from the decision, almost half of the remaining population lives in areas directly dependent on Chicago, so you can see how this would be dead in the water just by population alone. Then when you consider how downstate Illinois is only functional due to tax revenue from Chicagoland, you can see that this is just more idiotic posturing, but it does reflect real sentiments of downstate citizens.
It's insane the ridiculous things that I hear about Chicago from all these country boys who must only watch Fox News (although they swear they get their information from all kinds of sources despite having never heard that Chicago is safe to visit? Like they legitimately believe they would be in danger visiting Chicago even though they're totally fine with dropping by St Louis every weekend). It's especially telling that they think the part of the state that refers to itself as "Chicagoland" would side with the empty cornfields against the only reason any of us live here.
It's wilder to hear all the anti-chicago sentiment from actual politicians who know better.
I lived in STL for a few years and so I actually like it better than Chicago but I have family that live in the city and not the suburbs and other than the utter lack of accessibility, it's a good place to live for them.
I'm an actual "downstate" resident and while this sentiment exists it's not really "real". Most people with those views IMO would not vote for this if they thought it would happen. I know more people now that visit "the city" regularly. But even before that was my peer group, most people think Chicago has violence and doesn't understand anything south of I-80.
And the average person doesn't know real things about where they don't live. But it ignores the number of transplants back and forth all the time.
Just to weigh in on this with my own personal experience, having lived in Chicago proper for 10 years, it really felt like it was not if you'd be a victim of a crime, but when. I'm very liberal, but I also knew many people who had experienced a crime. Personally, we had our garage robbed. Thankfully, we never kept anything valuable in the garage, but our upstairs neighbors had a bunch of A/V stuff stolen. Worse than that, my partner had someone pull up to them in the late afternoon while they were walking home from work in a nice neighborhood, pull out a gun, and shoot at them. When we went to the police, they acted like we were wasting their time. They did send a detective out to talk to us, but that was it. I guess that's about all they could do. The person was later caught because they had actually done this many times, and they happened to do it once to an off-duty cop. That was the turning point for us, I think, that eventually lead to us leaving.
I really did enjoy my time in Chicago, but I've got no desire to move back. When we do go back to visit family, it feels like things are sliding downward. It sucks seeing tent-cities of homeless in places they were never camping before. I'm not trying to argue with statistics, but I have intimate personal experiences with Chicago, lots of friends and family there with crime stories as well, and I just don't want to deal with that stuff anymore in my life.
I live in the northern suburbs, we've seen a big uptick in violent crime. People pulling guns out at gas stations and shooting people, hijacking their car in their driveway, significant car and garage robberies. It's pretty crazy. I live in a very affluent neighborhood, and not even close to the surrounding neighborhoods around Chicago. I'm an hour out.
I'm in the SF Bay Area, and there's been a similar thing here, but I feel like the big change in the last few years has been a shift in who gets victimized. It's no longer as many crimes of opportunity against other poor people as it is a recognition that it's far more lucrative to steal from people who actually have stuff to steal. With coordination, it's far more profitable to drive for a half hour and steal from a wealthier neighborhood than it is to knock over a tiny corner store down the block, even setting aside the fact that stores don't really have cash anymore.
My in-laws live in Oak Park, and my FIL was almost a car-jacking victim in the last year or two. They tried to block him in at one of those drive through mail boxes (if I'm remembering correctly), but he noticed something was fishy and was able to speed off before he was trapped. My FIL is conservative and bitches about Oak Park and Chicago all the time and we've gotten into many political fights before. During one tiff I basically said, "if you hate it so much here, you should leave... we did. Life is just easier where we are now." He didn't like that, and he personally insulted me. But something I've noticed about my partner's family over the years is that they prefer to complain about things rather than solve them. I can understand wanting to stay where you've always been out of inertia, convenience, family, all that. At a certain point, though, it's just kinda... I don't know, pathetic might be too strong. It's just this sad helplessness or something. I'm really happy and proud that my partner is now in therapy. From what I can interpret, it was a hard upbringing.
When I go back to visit now, I don't drink alcohol or engage too much. Just tell me to move this thing or that, I'll help cook and clean, whatever I've got to do to make it through. No more pointless fights for me.
Can I ask which neighborhood you lived in, just for context?
But I agree with you that when, not if, is a thing, but that's true in tons of places all over, and not just in the US. More importantly, there's a big difference between your garage getting robbed and someone being afraid to go to the Mag Mile because of the crime.
We lived in Ukrainian Village, and the shooting happened in Wicker Park. The garage thing just seemed like, "yeah, that happens." The shooting... eh. I agree that the Mag Mile always felt pretty safe. I worked on Michigan Ave for a large portion on my time in Chicago. And yeah, crime happens everywhere. But where I currently live, which is a small vacation town, I never worry about crime anywhere I go.
Reminds me of separatist movements in far north rural California.
Or the sentiment of some counties in western Oregon to join Idaho. These kinds of things are all over the place wherever you have urban/rural dichotomies in different sections of a state.
I wonder if ADM would be pro or ‘gin?
I think it would be an interesting experiment if noone could get hurt. Lots of folks around u-c would be upset.
I’m also curious how the collar counties would come down on this.
Still, the real bottom line as @updawg intimated, is there are real polarizations and real feelings connected to them. Somehow things have got to start flowing again.
This is nothing new though. I ran across this mid century gem the other day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlJ8ZCs4jY