Comment by curiousllama | Hacker News Reader

Comment by curiousllama | Hacker News Reader

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This is the opinion I always hear - but, after a decade, never really understood. (no shade - you're definitely in the majority with this opinion!)

Crime is bad, but concentrated in some parts of the city. Sure, I can't leave my bike with a cheap lock, but I've also lived in some questionable areas and never had real issues - nor have 95%+ of people I know, about the same rate as friends in other major cities (Philly, DC, etc.)

Public schools are dysfunctional - yea, I guess I'm young, but isn't that similar in most major cities?

Taxes are bad - yes, but so is NY/SF. Getting worse - fair point. Agree there.

Weather - yea, fair. Sucks hard.

Travel - yes, nothing close - but it's also an airline hub for 2/3 major airlines, and it's easy to get $100 tix to cool places.

I guess I may have just been too young much of the time to "get it." But it has so many great things, too - the summers, the restaurants, the colleges, the neighborhood variety & subcultures.

I kinda just wish I could buy long-term Calls on Chicago.

Former Chicago suburbs native. Once you have kids, you’re not willing to take them to the Bean on a weekend and end up in the middle of a shooting. Taxes are higher in NY or SF, but if you have kids, you’re not moving there anyway (I’d pick Des Moines, IA or somewhere safe in the Rust Belt first). The weather might get better with climate change, but probably not enough to make the winters tolerable. It can get very cold, and you might as well live in Canadian latitudes those times of the year. CPS quality is low and likely to not improve in the time my kids would rely on it.

Chicago could be great, but the effort required makes it a deep long dated out of the money call. Some deus ex machina intervention is going to be required to reduce crime, reduce the debt burden, and right size public services so a productive tax base will stay. Ideally, one works remotely for a Chicago firm and visits when the weather is good (between Memorial and Labor Day).

> Once you have kids, you’re not willing to take them to the Bean on a weekend and end up in the middle of a shooting

A (irresponsible) buddy of mine once drunkenly fell asleep by the bean, and was woken up by a nice homeless fellow who told him “hey man, can’t be sleeping here, the cops will fine you.” Wallet, phone, etc all still in his bag.

I lived across the street from the bean for 3 years. I’m more likely to get injured in a car wreck driving around the suburbs than a shooting by the Bean

You do you, we have different risk tolerances. It just isn’t worth it to me. I am not feeling lucky.

You are more likely to be shot in the Rust Belt than at the Bean, and it's not close.

Sure, we all have different risk tolerances, but if you're actively avoiding The Bean, I don't think risk tolerance can be the primary factor. What has led you to believe the area surrounding The Bean is so risky?

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/10/29/22751518/downtown-ch...

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/20/1100339756/a-shooting-in-chic...

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/multiple-people-were-sh...

https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/06/02/chicago-had-971-shoo...

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/crime-chaos-downtown-ke...

https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Gun-Crimes-Heat... (Zoom in)

(I work remotely for an employer with offices in the Loop as well)

I am not going to wade into the crime chatter all over this thread, people have their own stories and barometers on that stuff.

But I cannot let Bean anecdotes slide without an alternate take. We take our kids (two under 10) down to the Bean/Millennium Park area 4-5 times a summer, without fear. It's a fantastic place for families. Super diverse, good exercise, breeze off the lake. The Bean + the fountains + Maggie Daley Park can be an awesome Saturday/Sunday afternoon.

> Once you have kids, you’re not willing to take them to the Bean on a weekend and end up in the middle of a shooting.

Despicable and shameful FUD. You'd have to win (lose) the statistical lottery for this trope to become true. Good riddance tbh, Chicago needs more people believing in the city than those who spew this tired and fear-machine driven narrative. Hope wherever you ended up is as cultured, cosmopolitan and rich in life as Chicago but I highly doubt it.

I absolutely encourage people who believe in the city to move there. It needs those people, and I wish them all the best, genuinely.

As a current (longtime) resident, I see comment threads like this and scratch my head wondering which sensationalized coverage led to the belief that the city is so dangerous "it needs people who believe in it to move there".

May I ask: which neighborhood(s) did you live in, and/or is there specific coverage or a precipitating event that made you lose faith?

Crime has increased in some areas, yes, but the reaction to those increases have been extreme, and do not seem proportional.

It's one thing when people who don't live here are just reacting to the news cycle, but I'm pretty curious to hear your perspective as someone who has lived here.

They mentioned elsewhere: Evanston and Lake View lmao

The crime issue is debatable based on various stats, and I would tie partly into my general comment about the culture having become uglier, but to me it felt like violent crime was a smog cloud constantly over the city. Sure, the odds of something bad happening to me or my family was very low in the absolute, but it was off the charts relative to others places. The reports of shootings and carjackings and armed robberies in my neighborhood were disconcerting and we would alter our lives to help avoid stuff. Eventually, I looked at my wife and said, "You know, we don't have to live like this. This isn't normal. It's only normal here." It's weird when you're surrounded by it every day for decades, like anything else it becomes normalized.

CPS is uniquely dysfunctional with the number of times they strike. I had three kids in Coonley and the mood was constantly adversarial. The teachers see everyone as the enemy. It was pervasive and nasty and it spilled into the classroom. Like many other things it's become self-sorting. The good teachers mostly want to take a pay cut to go to a private school where the culture is different, and same for families that place a high value on education. The public system is the residual, and I'd say this is proven in various grim stats.

I really just think the culture is ugly, I don't know how else to say it. Everything felt negative, everyone was angry. Leaders (and the majority who elect them) de facto support and enable all this dysfunction because for various reasons it's now part of their ethos. It wasn't until we moved that I understood it, and I admit it's very difficult to articulate. I'm not saying Chicago is a hell hole, but the future of Chicago is at best stagnant to me...real estate values partly prove that. Migration stats, especially among high earners, should be deeply concerning to anyone involved. I haven't even touched on how financially screwed Illinois is.

The city just looks checkmated to me. This isn't Rochester but it's clearly in decline. When the companies start leaving is when people should start taking it really seriously, and we just had Caterpillar, Boeing, and now Citadel all bail, Citadel quite publicly. We can debate all sorts of things but the scoreboard here, the ultimate things which we'd use to measure a city's overall health and direction, is deeply and objectively troubling.

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