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Hey, Chicago, don't drag us into your inferiority complex

A Chicago Magazine writer pens a really long cri de coeur about how his city really doesn't suck and it's just as world-classy as New York and ends with:

Let Boston feel inferior to New York. They have a lot more reasons than we do.


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Comments

New York's alright if you like saxophones

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He's just bitter because he doesn't have a Harvard or MIT degree which spits out the very people who control his job.

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I feel inferior to sovereign states where people have good-paying jobs and don't jump through hoops for their medicine.

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why don't you go ahead and move to Europe?

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What stops me from jumping off the Tobin is the knowledge that I'll someday be the one who shapes what's left of our society as a member of the most active voting bloc, while you'll be a distant memory.

To play it straight with your insincere question, I'd be happy to be near my brother, sister-in-law, and niece in London, but everybody wants to live on that island, and the people who run it know that, and put up barriers to limit who gets to derive employment income upon it.

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...you'd have to come up with a whole bunch of British trivia.

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At least it hasn't declined in popularity as it has here. No two people have the same cultural experiences anymore, and I can only ask about mountains and rivers so many times.

Weep not for the memories.

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Can you reshape the safety and efficiency dream of the public transportation embarrassment and hazardous danger known as the MBTA?? Seems like the most elite movers and shakers of the "voting bloc" are laughed at by and powerless against it.

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Pave over the rails, and sell the right-of-way to rideshare firms.

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Nothing says efficient like paving over rails that carry 900 person trains, with 1 person vegas-overhyperloop-tesla roads.

We have too many cars, and not enough trains already. Cars suck in cities, always and forever.

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We are fortunate that Boston proper is relatively small.

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c'est un cri de coeur
ou encore mieux, un cri de cœur

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Merci.

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chippy little provincial burg with more major sports championships in the last 20 years than Chicagoans could ever dream of. We got to stop caring about our standing vs. New York in 2004. Chicago is doomed to know it's the perpetual Second City to Gotham, always merely the capital of flyover country.

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Since 1985
Bears 1
Cubs 1
White sox 1
Bulls 6
Blackhawks 3

Thats 12 championships (they have 2 more if you include wnba and mls)

Boston also has 12 since 1985
Red sox 4
Pats 6
Celts 1
Bruins 1

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Bears fans are worse than Cowboys fans.

Bears fans bring up their one Superbowl win 36 years ago like it happened last week.

Jets fans bring up their one Superbowl win 53 years ago like it happened last week (and NY being NY - the 69 Jets, like the 72 Knicks, and the 94 Rangers are the best teams ever to play their sport according to them).

That being said, the Chicago Fire are going to be really good this year by picking up Shaquiri and the Revs losing Turner and Buchanan.

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They won in 1986 and 2008

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37 years while glossing over the fact that Chicago has five teams to Boston’s four.

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We got to stop caring about our standing vs. New York in 2004.

Ummm, yeah.
That's demonstrative of the problem.
Boston had this complex. Jealous of NYC. Frequently whining about being a "world-class city". Insecure. Needing to be acknowledged. Frequently claiming to have invented/codified/perfected whatever is being talked about, when it's been done elsewhere as long or longer.
Boston still has this complex. Just look how they continue to obsess over the comparisons.

Chicago does not have this complex. City with the Broad Shoulders. It does not give a damn about NYC.

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…. a toddling town.

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The Chicago Marathon is a stepping stone to the Boston Marathon.

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The Chicago Marathon is widely regarded as “the beginner” Marathon of the Abbott World Marathon Majors with one of the widest entries and easiest course.

The least prestigious of the most prestigious. Still a great run and a fun city, though!

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Kudos for using an apropos French expression but "cri de coeur" would work better than "cri de couer" in this situation :)

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but "cri de coeur" would work better than "cri de couer" in this situation :)

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They don't. Advantage Boston.

That being said, they have normal bars on seemingly every corner and the world hasn't ended.

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taller than our hills. On the other hand, we have an ocean, they have a lake. We both have rivers, but theirs runs backwards, and catches fire. But they have the blues, and there's no substitute for that.

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We have buildings taller than our hills.

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because it's surrounded by 400 miles of nothing.

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... because it IS impressive. I may like Boston a bit more, but Chicago is pretty awesome too.

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dinner at restaurants later than 10 PM, midnight even.

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For political corruption, they look at Boston as bush league.

Chicago remains America's most corrupt city, and Illinois the third-most corrupt state, according to an annual report from the University of Illinois at Chicago. ...

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I've had no desire to visit Chicago...

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Chicago is a great city. New York is a great city. Boston is a great city. In fact all cities are better than suburbs and exurbs. You just need to actually like cities, and not define them by ridiculous things like sports championships.

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Whenever this concept of "world class cities" got started.

But honestly, I don't get Chicago being in a tither about their status. Yes, more can be done on the crime front, but the whole city isn't exactly a warzone.

On one of my trips to the Windy City, I decided that it's a East Coast city with a Midwest character, or vice versa. In any event, it's a great place.

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Couldn’t pay me enough to live in New York.

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I hate this divisive stuff. Can't Boston, Chicago, and New York all come together to work on what's important, which is to say, making fun of LA?

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Restaurants in Chicago are far better than Boston, hands down. Great restaurant scene in Chicago, nothing new or interesting in Boston (at least in comparison to Chicago or New York).

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YMMV, but just about all of my worst eating experiences happened in NYC.

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... out of thousands (tens of thousands) of possible choices.

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Hope you bought a lottery ticket that day too

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After all...
What are the odds that out of all the sausage-like products; in all the tepid, occasionally-changed water; in all the occasionally-washed pushcarts - someone would pick a bad one?

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