Is Chicago America's dirtiest city?
Readers' Digest thinks so. Mayor Daley begs to differ.
I haven't lived in what I still consider to be my home town in nearly a quarter of a century. For decades, though, I've noticed while back there on visits that what was once famous as "the city that works" has in fact gotten progressively filthier and more run down as time has gone on (most of it, that is; the Little Village neighborhood on the near Southwest Side, where I grew up, went to pot in the late 'Seventies- but has staged a dramatic comeback in recent years due to the pride and care of the community's mostly Hispanic residents, to the point at which I am once again proud of the area of the city where I spent my childhood).
Every visit to the Loop- once the pulsing heart of the city- plunges me into a depression. It's dirty, it's deserted- and it's just not the Loop I grew up with.
Chicago should be bigger than any other city in America, other than New York (overcoming Gotham in population obviously would be unrealistic for anybody)- and cleaner than any other, without exception. It should also have the lowest crime rate of America's largest cities.
It's Chicago, for cryin' out loud.
Maybe I'll have to move back and straighten things out.
Hat tip to The Galvin Opinion, New Yawker though Mr. Galvin is.
I haven't lived in what I still consider to be my home town in nearly a quarter of a century. For decades, though, I've noticed while back there on visits that what was once famous as "the city that works" has in fact gotten progressively filthier and more run down as time has gone on (most of it, that is; the Little Village neighborhood on the near Southwest Side, where I grew up, went to pot in the late 'Seventies- but has staged a dramatic comeback in recent years due to the pride and care of the community's mostly Hispanic residents, to the point at which I am once again proud of the area of the city where I spent my childhood).
Every visit to the Loop- once the pulsing heart of the city- plunges me into a depression. It's dirty, it's deserted- and it's just not the Loop I grew up with.
Chicago should be bigger than any other city in America, other than New York (overcoming Gotham in population obviously would be unrealistic for anybody)- and cleaner than any other, without exception. It should also have the lowest crime rate of America's largest cities.
It's Chicago, for cryin' out loud.
Maybe I'll have to move back and straighten things out.
Hat tip to The Galvin Opinion, New Yawker though Mr. Galvin is.
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