Marko
Active Member
I can attest to this also. Chicago is a large scale example of a midwest city that has a great core and some great suburbs, but a rather sizable belt of decay in between.2008 is a useful smokescreen for a process that was already happening over the previous four decades, at least...
My first time to Chicago was in 1993 and having some free time one afternoon, I wanted to go out to the old Chicago Stadium where the Bulls and Blackhawks played. When I told the cabbie where I wanted to go he replied "But there's no game" and I said I knew. He asked again "Are you sure?" and I said yes. He warned me not to walk around the area and said he would only take me if I paid him to wait until I was either done, or inside taking a tour. I though he was trying to scare me into a bigger fare, but I learned later what he meant - and the place is not even far from the core.
I rented cars during later trips and drive around some, skirted some of the projects, passing through large areas of what I can only describe as rot. In 2001 I dated a woman from Chicago and went probably 10 times in the span of 4 months and really got to know the city, especially the NW suburbs and downtown. It's an amazing place and really a lot like Toronto in some ways, but then both better and worse in others.
But back to adma's comment - 2008 did make things worse in a lot of places - but it started long before. Just like Detroit or Cleveland or Buffalo but on a larger scale. The attention paid to the downtown and the waterfront resulted in some great things and rightfully ensured the face and visitor focused parts of Chicago remained healthy, but did nothing to improve the rot. We don't have as much to brag about in the high profile areas of Toronto, but have instead done more to ensure the entire city is more adequately taken care of. it's really an example of what makes Canada different from the US - very much like our health care system. Our sensibilities don't allow us to accept the extremes as normal and will instead spread our resources around to ensure everyone (or every area) has at least some measure of comfort/dignity (insert feel good word here). We compromise. It results in their best almost always being better than our best, but we have far less bad and don't come anywhere near their worst either.
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