Reviews & Comments
Chicago, IL
re: Think twice if you didn’t grow up here
-
3/7/2019Avoid Chicago, very low quality of life. Chicago is a broken city in a broken state. Corruption is the absolute norm & it is deeply rooted in both the city & state. The police force is a tax payer funded organized crime syndicate. The police are inept & corrupt to their core. The CPD should be totally destroyed & rebuilt from scratch. Bad weather all year. Bad geography. Boring people.
Unfortunately I lived in Chicago for years. I have lived all over the US & I lived overseas. Chicago has the lowest quality of life without a doubt & with a relatively high cost of living. I like outdoor activities & Chicago has no legitimate outdoor recreation. People in Chicago consider eating at a new restaurant adventurous. Eating & watching tv are the primary forms of recreation but that’s the same in most of america. I really have nothing positive about the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois.
Chicago, IL
re: Calm down - take a chill pill
-
11/28/2018Janet makes a great point. Burr Ridge is not Chicago it’s an upscale western suburb. Suburban living & city living are not similar.
She sums it up fairly. She commented on my post too. I posted about my hatred for Chicago & she responded with a fair reply mostly disagreeing with me. So Janet deserves credit for being pretty objective in her comments on Chicago.
Overall I disagree with Jeffrey. Yes crime is concentrated in certain areas but when I lived there a couple was walking in upscale Bucktown and they had their head bashed in with a baseball bat during a mugging. Also a tourist was “sodemized with a tree branch” by a homeless man at 6am in Grant Park the city’s front yard. I’m pretty sure Jeffrey wasn’t implying Bucktown was one of those bad neighborhoods.
Bozeman, MT
re: Local Who Hates It
-
11/28/2018To James from Ontario CA; Bozeman was better before there was a Costco & Home Depot & other big box junk stores. Never needed any of those stores already had Kenyon Noble hardware & grocery store. This is what people like you don’t get. People like or liked Bozeman because it wasn’t a bunch or shitty chain stores & a strip mall hell. Bozeman doesn’t need another subdivision of homogeneous tract housing, it doesn’t need another trophy home. The valley is better off with less people. People like you for some reason think you’re improving the place. You’re totally oblivious to the fact that your “Bozeman is lucky to have me” attitude is repulsive condescending inconsiderate and ultimately wrong.
Durango, CO
re: It's about lifestyle
-
11/1/2018Dorinda now lives in Ft Wayne IN. I think I’d rather be homeless than live in Ft Wayne. Indiana feels like some kind of backward christian extremist state.
Bellingham, WA
Love Bellingham -
11/1/2018I’ve lived all over the US & Bellingham was one of my favorites overall. I’d move back if I could.
Bellingham, WA
re: Worst place I have ever lived
-
11/1/2018I lived all over & B’ham was definitely one of the best. The cost of living is relatively expensive & doesn’t match the job opportunities, that’s true. That’s the same story with everywhere that’s desirable to live. Rents & cost of living has gone up far more than wages but this is not unique to B’ham and has been going on for decades now across the US. For people that like outdoor activities B’ham is an amazing place. Great skiing at Baker, backpacking at N Cascades NP, kayaking the San Juan’s, great biking of all types. The climate is good. Winters are grey & misty but that’s no secret, the temp is mild. Summers are nearly perfect, it’s almost never too warm & no disgusting humidity.
It’s close to Seattle to go to shows & access a major airport & take care of city needs. Close to Vancouver one of the best cities on earth.
It’s bike & pedestrian friendly and with the bus so you don’t have to be a slave to a ball & chain car. Very easy to be car free there.
It’s liberal for sure sometimes to an extreme but much better than being a right wing town full of conservative fuckers. California transplants & retirees definitely contribute to driving up housing costs but that’s the same all over the western US. Not many restaurants, true but who cares there’s more interesting things to spend time & money doing. Places with food culture are usually just so dull people resort to recreational eating.
If I could move back I would for sure. I agree with Joaquin, bye Felicia!
Bozeman, MT
re: Local Who Hates It
-
10/31/2018Bozeman used to be much nicer like 20 yrs ago. I went to school there & it was great for hiking skiing rafting. The population was a mix of ranchers, university students/faculty, and mountain bums. Real mountain bums not the weekend warrior posers that infiltrated Bozeman & other formerly great mountain towns. CA retirees are a plague throughout the western US. Developers really destroyed the place with all the new strip malls, track housing, & trophy homes. Down by Big Sky the sleazy developers ruined the largest elk breeding ground in the northern rockies with the yellowstone club for the Uber rich. They built golf courses no one ever needed at spanish peaks for the rich, moonlight basin for the pseudo rich. Developers are swine everywhere but especially in the mountain towns. I left after school because the only way to make a living was by destroying the place & contributing to the downfall. Also all the type of people I was trying to avoid started moving there. I left because I felt I was part of the problem by adding to the population in the valley & state too. I also wanted more variety of people, anonymity, & more spice of life which is only available in cities.
Chicago, IL
re: Lakeshore East - A Gem to Consider
-
10/12/2018Lakeshore East as the developers have named the area is basically just an extension of Streeterville. It is a great part of Chicago especially if you want an urban lifestyle meaning no car, walkable to all your needs, small condo/apt. Lakeshore East Park is a nice sort of hidden park. The Aqua building is probably the only interesting modern skyscraper in Chicago.
The negatives are that you need to be rich to afford even the smallest studio in Lakeshore East. You are surrounded by four horrible tourist traps Millennium Park & Navy Pier & N Michigan Ave & the river walk so there are hordes of fanny packing morons clogging the neighborhood.
Los Angeles, CA
re: Unreal
-
10/12/2018Alan you are from Chicago so you really shouldn’t criticize other cities. Chicago is broke far more so than LA. Drug problems, visit West Harrison or Austin or Englewood in your own city. Maybe you should take a drive on lower Wacker Dr it’s a homeless colony. Chicago protects illegal immigrants. By the way many Mexicans would consider the Americans the illegals in LA since we took it from them & it was Mexican & Spanish for much longer than part of the US. Talk about voting idiots into office, Chicago & Illinois probably is the most glaring example of people continuously voting idiots into office. You try to fix your own shithole city & state.
Los Angeles, CA
re: 40 years ago maybe..
-
10/12/2018LA has many problems & as I commented on another review all the people I know there have either thrived or ended up bankrupt. Nevada is not much better. It’s cheap because it’s an undesirable moonscape & because the US taxpayer had to foot the bill for re-plumbing the rivers of the SW. Las Vegas is one of the ugliest cities on earth. It’s like a tacky trashy theme park surrounded by track housing & strip malls.
Los Angeles, CA
re: The Grand Illusion.
-
10/12/2018LA has a lot of issues. The people I know there have either thrived or bankrupt nothing in between. But Columbia SC is a backward place in a state full of knuckle dragging bible thumpers.
Minneapolis, MN
re: Challenging place, but possibly worth it.
-
10/11/2018Trump is human garbage. Minneapolis is a great city we can agree on that. One of the most underrated cities.
Chicago, IL
re: Chicago - Don't Move Here if You Like Nat
-
10/11/2018You definitely have to travel hundred of miles to find a national park and actual quality outdoor recreation. But Chicago is not known & has never been known for any outdoor sports or premium natural landscapes. Why would expect to find that in Chicago? I hate Chicago partially because it suffers from dull geography but that’s not the cities fault. Their corrupt backrupt gov’t yes their fault, their brutal inept police yes their fault. Flat featureless topography, harsh climate are simply the geography. That’s not a secret & should not have been a surprise.
I can’t speak for SC since I haven’t spent time there and avoid the south at all cost. San Luis Obispo is a beautiful area but have you looked at the cost of living & lack of jobs there? Not sure it’s a realistic place to relocate unless you can work at the university.
Chicago, IL
re: A city bent on destroying itself
-
10/11/2018While I agree with many of your negative views of Chicago. I strongly disagree with your comment that bicyclists are a “menace”, cars are a menace in a dense urban environment. The city of Chicago should not only continue to build bike infrastructure they should double down. Bike infrastructure is cheap and long lasting low maintenance. Bike infrastructure and mass transit and pedestrian infrastructure all reinforce each other. Auto centric infrastructure is extremely inefficient & expensive. Auto centric planning is not conducive in a dense urban center. From all my travels & living in a variety of cities I can say for sure the quality of life is far greater the less auto centric the city is. Move to the suburbs if you can’t live without your car.
Chicago, IL
Low quality of life. City & state broken. -
10/10/2018I was unfortunate enough to live in Chicago for several years. First of all the weather is horrible. People know the winter is bad but the summer is the worst season, disgusting humidity combined with many 90+ degree days.
Chicago is known for it's violent crime which is true but there are parts of the city that have very little crime. I'm not sure where I heard this & can't take credit but here is a great summery of Chicago: It's like Detroit and San Francisco had a baby. Similar to Detroit with horrible climate all the rust belt problems like violent crime, outdated infrastructure, old pollution/remnants of heavy industry, corrupt government. It's like San Francisco in that there are some great urban neighborhoods with access to transit, parks, culture, grocery stores but only people in the wealthiest 5% can afford to live in these neighborhoods. Chicago has a relatively diverse economy even more diverse than strictly tech based SF or auto based Detroit.
It's odd, in neighborhoods like Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Bucktown that have access to mass transit and where you can live an urban lifestyle the people that live there live a suburban lifestyle with two cars(usually oversized SUV's).
The city has some nice parks mostly along the lakefront but if you live in the western parts of the city the lakefront is not easy to access for daily or regular use despite being only a few miles as the crow flies. If you like access to nature & outdoor sports there is none here. You can go on a nature walk in one of the forest preserves in the burbs but nothing close to an actual hike. In fairness Chicago is not known for outdoor sports or nature.
The police department is just a taxpayer funded organized crime syndicate. You will be disproportionately impacted by this if you are black or hispanic. The city has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars for settlements for their inept police force. This is the same police force that used to have a torture site from 1972 to 1991 to force confessions from people to say they "solved a crime". This is absolute fact: see John Burge. The police are not much better now.
The city has a lot of food options from low cost to ridiculous expensive. In fact eating is like a form of recreation in Chicago & it is reflected in a significant portion of the population is obese.
Architecture is something people in Chicago brag about but really if you have seen one glass skyscraper you have seen them all.
Another negative is that Chicago is located in the state of Illinois which is also corrupt and broken, probably broken beyond repair. This is a reflection of the population, you will here "It's just the way it is." over & over. They accept this backward political system and do nothing to change it.
The traffic is horrible & there are super aggressive angry drivers. The mass transit is ok if you live near metra or cta trains. Mass transit is just a problem everywhere in the US. Our automobile centric transportation is a complete waste of time & money.
I have been fortunate to live in many places and I can say with great confidence Chicago has the lowest quality of life and at a high cost. I would certainly never recommend moving here and I don't even think it's worth visiting.
Eugene, OR
re: it's great but...
-
10/10/2018If you think winter is bad in Eugene, OR then you have never experienced anything remotely close to a harsh winter.