My wife has become a reluctant southsider. If she had her druthers she would still be living in the city. I see her points but I still think living in the burbs is better. However, I can see both points. So with that in mind I give you the top and bottom five things about living on the south side in the burbs.
Top 5
1. No Yuppies – Ya, we are blue collar but I would much rather have that then the yup’s you get in the city. The people in the south burbs are real and have very few pretensions about them. We don’t drive BMW’s and we don’t shop at Baby Gap. We like Dunken Donuts coffee and we aren’t afraid to eat a francheezie.
2. Driving is a breeze – Rarely do we have traffic congestions. Sure there are spots to avoid like Harlem, but we have these things called turning lanes which tend to ease the flow of traffic. Driving in the city is a maddening experience. Also, when you go to the store by my house you can actually park. Nothing irritates me more then having to circle a block like ten times trying to find a place to park your car.
3. Nature – Living in the burbs we actually have these things called trees. As a matter of fact we have green grass and asphalt is not littered everywhere. You can actually buy a house with a real backyard that you can sit in without sitting on your neighbors lap. We have nature and forest preserves. We have a ton of small lakes and natural wildlife abounds. In the city you have rats and pigeons as the natural wildlife.4.
4. Less Crime – Reading the police blotter in Palos Hills is a joke. We have a couple of break-ins here and there usually done by idiot suburban youths. Are violent crime is virtually zilch. In the city your chances of getting jumped or burgled are much higher.
5. Location – Sure, we are not in the city limits but we are close enough that we are not out in the sticks. I am close to Midway, 294, 55 and a number of other expressways. It takes me 15 minutes to drive into the city with no traffic. I can get almost anywhere because of the proximity to highways near my house. Plus I get all the benefits of living in Chicago without actually having to pay city prices which are a joke.
Bottom 5
1. No Diversity – I am the first to admit my area lacks a certain amount of diversity. Trust me when I say it has gotten a lot better in the last ten years but we still have a long way to go. Our minority population continues to grow but we still are littered with Polish and Irish Americans.
2. Food choices lacking – In the city you can any type of food you want. While I think we have a nice amount of choices we certainly can’t stack up against the choices you have in the city. If you want Indian or Korean food in the south burbs you are out of luck. We are not as bad as say Frankfurt but we aren’t quite there,
3. Culture – We just don’t have the history of culture that the city has. We don’t have museums and we can’t match the city for history. We don’t have an old neighborhood because we go back to about the 60’s. Where as most parts of the city go back to the fire.
4. Public Transportation – The city definitely has better options when it comes to mass transit. Sure I have Metra (which I love) but you have to drive to get to it. It is a must that you own a car if you live in the burbs. Where as in the city you can usually walk to either a bus or train. Sure we have buses in the burbs but they come around about as often as Haley’s Comet.
5. Shopping – Sure we have our malls in the burbs but they are littered with corporate stores. We don’t have a lot of re-sale shops our independent record stores. If you want to buy a book at somewhere other then Borders you best head into the city.
2 Comments:
I have strong feelings on this, coming from the southwest bubs and having moved to the north side of Chicago. My feelings on your top and bottom 5:
Top 5
1. No Yuppies – As much as I hate the yuppies, I hate the white trash more. Besides, where I currently live in the city (Edgewater), there is more of a blue collar element, so I’m pretty free from the yuppie scum. Sure, the south siders lack pretension, but they also lack teeth.
2. Driving is a breeze – Hard to argue that one. Driving is a pain in the ass, but it offers one the ability to truly learn the city inasmuch as I have devised my “routes.” I can get anywhere in the city in half as much as time as a lot of people because I have taken the time to drive from one end to the other and back, always mapping out endless streams of roads and committing to memory which is a one way, which is always jammed up and which, maybe because its not so smooth, is usually empty. Granted, my car has taken a beating from the poorly paved streets and constant stop-n-go, but I get where I need to be in remarkable time. It’s like creating a map in the head, a sort of urban cartorgraphy of back streets and shady alleyways.
3. Nature – We have trees in the city. We transplanted them from the burbs. Seriously, you’re right; we lack the amount of forests and trees and grass that you have out there, but the great thing is we can drive for 30 minutes, take a nice walk through the woods, then turn around and head back to civilization. The suburbs serve as our backyard. Actually, they're more like our basement: you know there’s something down there, you just don’t go into it very often. Ha ha, just kidding. And we do have a large natural body of water up here as opposed to the Belly Deep Slough or Bulfrog “Lake”, if you can call it that.
4. Less Crime – But that’s what makes the city so exciting!
5. Location – It’s a question of priority. I prefer the location of… well, the city. Not close to but in the middle of. Right in the thick of it. I go nuts in the burbs. Too quiet. It’s gotten so I need the sounds of street noise to get to bed. It’s reassuring. The rent is outrageous, that is true, but I regret nothing. It’s worth it to me to be where I want to be.
Bottom 5
1. No Diversity – Yeah, when the middle easterners moved in, almost everyone I know moved out of Burbank and into the more cookie-cutter bubs that make me yawn. What the hell?
2. Food choices lacking – Well, I love me some south side pizza (see you Friday night). And when I ate meat, there was nothing like going back to Dukes for some beef. But otherwise, food diversity is pretty sparse in the bubs. Although there are a lot of good Polish and Middle Eastern places.
3. Culture – You’re right, no real museums, no art, nothing, although it is getting better. When I grew up in the burbs, I had no exposure to the writers and books I now adore. I would have killed for a Borders! Now they’re around, which is good. But back in the late 80’s all I knew of books was what Crown and Waldenbooks offered, which is very little, unless you like Tom Clancy. People ask me why I don’t read Stephen King and Anne Rice anymore. One, I grew out of it; Two, there’s about three hundred better writers out there, and; Three, I now have access to their work. And there are no real used books stores, student rate gallery exhibits or good concerts. It might be expensive living in the city, but it is cheaper to take the El (or walk) to the Vic or the Empty Bottle to see a good band then it is to buy the tickets online, drive to the north side and pay for parking. Between the rock clubs, the used book shops and the art museums, I was in heaven when I came to the city. All the burbs had was sports bars and 40 year old dudes playing white-boy blues. Nothing wrong with that, but not really my thing.
4. Public Transportation – The PACE system is no misnomer.
5. Shopping – God help me if I ever see another mall.
Top 5
1. No Yuppies – Are you kidding, I use to have a boss that lived in Tinley that drove a bmw and bought clothes at banana republic. So there are yuppies out here but they are called suburbanite yuppies. I buy donuts from dunken donuts when I lived in the city. I only bought krispy kremes out here in the burbs.
2. Driving is a breeze – There are also side street in the city that we use to avoid traffic. There are just as much more traffic congestions here on Harlem, 95th, Lagrange. Ok maybe there are more turning lanes which tend to ease the flow of traffic, the roads are wider because there are hardly every any sidewalks on major streets and everyone nees a car.
3. Nature – There are trees in the city it's called the park. Maybe when you lived in Lincoln park you should have gone less to the bars on Fullerton and more to the parks. That way you would see less rats and pigeons and more trees.
4. Less Crime – Ok there is less crime here. I haven't been mug yet but I hardly walk so that decrease the statistics.
5. Location – Ok we are close to Midway, 294, 55 and a number of other expressways. But taxes are all different here, living in Oak Lawn and Orland city taxes is just as much as Chicago. And since the further away live from Chicago you are also paying higher for water. I know we don't live there and we don't pay that much taxes here or water.
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