n.c. wrote:Yeah, I think our experiences in Chicago would be fairly different if we weren't practically all white (aren't we?)

well, there are an awful lot of non-white people living productive lives in this city. and there are an awful lot of white people eating shit.

certainly, the proportions are terribly skewed in an obvious direction, but this is where we are as a society. there's no decent-sized city in the united states where these proportions are dramatically different. we should want to change it, but i'm not putting the blame for racial inequality at daley's feet.

tmidgett wrote:well, there are an awful lot of non-white people living productive lives in this city. and there are an awful lot of white people eating shit.

I agree it's not fair to blame Daley for the city's racial problems.
I don't think he's as indifferent as his dad was.
But I don't think he conducts business in a colorblind manner, either, the minority contracting scandal being the most obvious example.
Maybe there just aren't enough non-whites from the 11th ward to get in on the graft.

Affordable housing in decent neighborhoods? All I see is condos going up. It's going to be hard for that Mexican family to get into one of those.

When all the beautiful old three flats in the city are being bulldozed to make way for poorly constructed condos that sit vacant, part of the blame has to fall on city hall.

When the only affordable rents are in shitty ass neighborhoods immigants and the underprivleged are forced to live there, crime is higher in these neighborhoods and the only place to buy food is the liquor store..... there is a patern there and it is ugly and Daley ain't helping.

R.F.F. wrote:
Daley has been good for Chicago. The streets get cleaned, the snow gets plowed, and the city looks beautiful. The Daley management style has greatly improved the quality of live in the city for most Chicagoans- look around Chicago is booming. There is always going to be corruption in a city the size of Chicago. Every ten years or so another FBI probe happens and shakes up city hall. Daley will survive this.


This city is booming? Tell that to all the homeless people, and people who happen to live on the southside and westside. I can see where you would think Chicago was in great shape if you only went downtown and on the northside. Maybe you don't see it, but the crime and poverty in this city is out of control. Look up the statistics, 600 murders in 2003. 700 murders in 2002. They are jumping for joy because the murder rate had gone 'way down' for last year....uh, but there were still 550 people murdered. New York, which is 3 times the size of Chicago had roughly half the murders in 2002. People are poor and starving in the shitty neighborhoods, while they spend tens of millions on a silver blob for yuppie assholes to look at. While they give away hundreds of millions to political friends and allies with bogus construction contracts. I find that offensive, and criminal in it's neglect. Ever been to one of those schools in the ghetto? They barely have a fucking roof, the textbooks are complete shit and there's 70 kids crammed in one room. Tell all those people the city is beautiful and booming. The way this city is run makes me sick, it's a disgrace. Fuck Daley, he's a fucking lying crook gangster. Daley has done nothing good for the poor people of this city besides steal from them and neglect them.

I don't need to tell people on the South and West sides that the city is booming- they see it themselves. I own property on the Westside (East Garfield Park) and everywhere around my building new things are being built. The city has put millions of dollars into improving the neighborhood with new public work projects, scattered site public housing, and tax incentives for investors and homeowners. The same thing is happening in the Bronzeville, Englewood, and SouthShore neighborhoods. The new money has brought better jobs and more money into these communities. Investors and many first time homebuyers are rehabbing formerly vacant buildings and improving these communities. The Daley administration is in large part responsible for this. (Before everyone screams at me- I understand that this is called gentrification. But what are the alternatives to improving a community? I think the last 30 years have taught us that just throwing money at a disadvantaged neighborhood doesn't help and that segregating people into ghettos doesn't work. ) Daley follows the "Broken Windows" theory. In a nutshell, this theory states that chaos breeds chaos. That people living in dilapidated communities perceive a sense of lawlessness and therefore; are less likely to follow the law. So by making landlords and homeowners fix broken windows and by having the city clean off graffiti, tow junk cars, and arrest vagrants the crime in the community drastically drops. Crime is down all over the city. I spend time in some of these neighborhoods and see it first hand. Obviously, there will always be crime and there will always be poor neighborhoods, but I think the city is helping to lessen it. Although, to be honest, I do choose to live in a nice northside neighborhood and not the westside.

The Chicago public schools have been greatly improved over the last decade (note: while I believe this statement a quick google search provided no helpful links). Of course I feel they should and could be better. I too am angry about the millions of dollars stolen from the people of Chicago. I'd like to see all of that money go to schools, fixing our roads, and helping the homeless. I hope that the people who stole are severely punished for it. Chicago has major problems, Daley has major problems (many are listed in the previous post and I can't refute them) but until someone comes along who convinces me that they can do a better job than Daley- Daley will continue to get my vote and confidence.

R.F.F. wrote:

R.F.F. wrote:
Daley has been good for Chicago. The streets get cleaned, the snow gets plowed, and the city looks beautiful. The Daley management style has greatly improved the quality of live in the city for most Chicagoans- look around Chicago is booming. There is always going to be corruption in a city the size of Chicago. Every ten years or so another FBI probe happens and shakes up city hall. Daley will survive this.


This city is booming? Tell that to all the homeless people, and people who happen to live on the southside and westside. I can see where you would think Chicago was in great shape if you only went downtown and on the northside. Maybe you don't see it, but the crime and poverty in this city is out of control. Look up the statistics, 600 murders in 2003. 700 murders in 2002. They are jumping for joy because the murder rate had gone 'way down' for last year....uh, but there were still 550 people murdered. New York, which is 3 times the size of Chicago had roughly half the murders in 2002. People are poor and starving in the shitty neighborhoods, while they spend tens of millions on a silver blob for yuppie assholes to look at. While they give away hundreds of millions to political friends and allies with bogus construction contracts. I find that offensive, and criminal in it's neglect. Ever been to one of those schools in the ghetto? They barely have a fucking roof, the textbooks are complete shit and there's 70 kids crammed in one room. Tell all those people the city is beautiful and booming. The way this city is run makes me sick, it's a disgrace. Fuck Daley, he's a fucking lying crook gangster. Daley has done nothing good for the poor people of this city besides steal from them and neglect them.

I don't need to tell people on the South and West sides that the city is booming- they see it themselves. I own property on the Westside (East Garfield Park) and everywhere around my building new things are being built. The city has put millions of dollars into improving the neighborhood with new public work projects, scattered site public housing, and tax incentives for investors and homeowners. The same thing is happening in the Bronzeville, Englewood, and SouthShore neighborhoods. The new money has brought better jobs and more money into these communities. Investors and many first time homebuyers are rehabbing formerly vacant buildings and improving these communities. The Daley administration is in large part responsible for this. (Before everyone screams at me- I understand that this is called gentrification. But what are the alternatives to improving a community? I think the last 30 years have taught us that just throwing money at a disadvantaged neighborhood doesn't help and that segregating people into ghettos doesn't work. ) Daley follows the "Broken Windows" theory. In a nutshell, this theory states that chaos breeds chaos. That people living in dilapidated communities perceive a sense of lawlessness and therefore; are less likely to follow the law. So by making landlords and homeowners fix broken windows and by having the city clean off graffiti, tow junk cars, and arrest vagrants the crime in the community drastically drops. Crime is down all over the city. I spend time in some of these neighborhoods and see it first hand. Obviously, there will always be crime and there will always be poor neighborhoods, but I think the city is helping to lessen it. Although, to be honest, I do choose to live in a nice northside neighborhood and not the westside.

The Chicago public schools have been greatly improved over the last decade (note: while I believe this statement a quick google search provided no helpful links). Of course I feel they should and could be better. I too am angry about the millions of dollars stolen from the people of Chicago. I'd like to see all of that money go to schools, fixing our roads, and helping the homeless. I hope that the people who stole are severely punished for it. Chicago has major problems, Daley has major problems (many are listed in the previous post and I can't refute them) but until someone comes along who convinces me that they can do a better job than Daley- Daley will continue to get my vote and confidence.

Where on earth did you get the idea the public schools in Chicago have greatly improved? Because that's what the city says? They are lying.

"nearly 5,000 Chicago Public School Teachers failed at least one Illinois certification test. Such teachers stood at the head of classrooms and taught more than 150,000 children. In District 46, students studied the English language with a teacher who had failed 21 of 21 tests for teachers. That included nine of nine Basic Skills tests--an exam so easy, experts say, an eighth- or ninth-grader should pass it on the first try. last school year, a group of elementary children took classes from a teacher who failed 15 of 16 teacher competency tests. the city's neediest children--those in the lowest-scoring, highest-minority and highest-poverty schools--are roughly ten times more likely to encounter teachers who stumbled in efforts to pass the tests."

This city is a fucking vortex of corruption and bullshit. They are feeding these kids into the meat grinder, they refuse to pay decent teachers because all the money goes into some fat fucks pocket beacuse he had a vote for Daley sign in his front yard. Thank god they spent 11 million or whatever on that stupid silver blob, I mean imagine if they would have spent that money training teachers, or buying books for the kids...
Thank god the yuppies have nice trees and bushes to look at, and their lincoln park streets are kept plowed and clean....fuck everyone else.
The streets are not kept nice and cleaned and plowed in the poor neighborhoods, you know.
As far as the ghettos being so nice now...go take a walk through Englewood right now and tell me how nice it is. Try and get a job in Englewood, there are none. There were almost 70 murders in Englewood alone in the first three months of this year!

i'm not directing this at anyone in particular, but rather making a sweeping generalization that may or may not apply to anyone as it may or may not even be valid... but i think it's really easy to complain about all the ills of daley, the ills of chicago, the ills of society in general, simply because it's easy to do and makes one feel like they're a "good guy" and the other is the "bad guy". complaints like this can be accompanied by viable and fully-thought-out solutions, but seem to be so quite rarely.

when i heard Daley's take on gentrification, it put it in a really interesting perspective for me. it was something along the lines of "do you wanna live somewhere that looks nice or somewhere that looks crappy?" that was pretty much his answer to someone complaining about gentrification. and it's so very, very true. you're not gonna have people moving their families and businesses into a city that looks like shit and doesn't feel safe. part of the reason chicago is doing as well as it is would certainly be that every city experienced the urban boom in the past 10 years or however long its been... but part of it is that this town in particular is a great town, with great neighborhoods, lots of character, tons of ethnic diversity...

it's super, SUPER art-friendly. whether or not you give a shit about it, this town holds so many US and world records for innovation and art-type crap. largest free public zoo, largest aquarium, largest public library, sure a lot of it is about "large", but hey! that's the kinda shit that brings people in, and allows the city to build rather than rot.

and as far as systemic racism goes, when i worked on the noise project at o'hare, i was absolutely blown away by how diverse the city employees are. black, hispanic, asian, TONS of women, in all manner of positions. the head of the fricken program was a woman! this city is super-progressive in that sense, more than complainers actually know. and as far as their being racial inequalities, i would say long before you try and pin that in any way on Daley, you should pin it on slavery, cause that's why chicago has such a big population of underprivilidged black folks in the first place. because this town was a major destination back in the day when they went from legally being property to being considered human beings. and if you look, you will have no trouble finding any number of examples of poor black people who are able to rise up and make a good life for themselves here in chicago.

if you're gonna try and draw conclusions based on distribution of wealth vs racial characteristics, do it for other cities, too. are all the black and hispanic folks in any other top 10 US city just as privilidged as the white folks? of course not. this is fucking america, we're a baby of a nation and we have a long way to go and everybody should know that. but why not compare chicago to its other large midwestern counterparts for a minute? which of the big midwestern cities has done as well over the past 100 years? granted Daley's only a small part of that, but i guarantee you, if he wasn't doing a good job, this city could have gone quite to shit in the time he's been in office.

*of course* there is corruption. find me a big city where there isn't! that doesn't excuse it, but it does make it a hell of a lot less noteworthy when you're condemning Daley for it. look at the city he inherited, and look at where it is today. i may not like lincoln park at all, but i feel a lot safer there today then i would have 20 years ago. or bucktown.

Daley is a nutjob, okay? but he manages, in his own nutjob way, to run one of the largest cities in the US. and it's not going to hell in a handbasket. look at philly, which is older and less populated (though it was once more populated, a long time ago), and compare it to chicago. compare chicago to St Louis, or Milwaukee, or Cleveland, or wherever... i like chicago just fine, and i would hate to see Daley replaced. cause i don't believe that he should be.

people should seek out the corruption, and call it out, and do what can be done to remedy it. but on the whole, i really think Daley's style works well for a town as complex as chicago. granted i'm not poor, and it's easy to argue that even though my family was very poor only two generations ago, the reason my grandparents and parents were able to rise up as they did is not because they worked hard, but rather because they're white... and you can find examples of non-white folks working just as hard and rising up even more.

if you want Daley out, start by sharing your research that you've done, and telling us who you want to take his place and give examples of why they'll be better. somebody here can do this and do it well, i suspect. and i would be really interested in hearing it.

last i heard, and this was like a month ago, if the mayoral election was held that day, Jesse Jackson Jr would win the election. how long would he last? how well would he do? better than Daley?

Marsupialized wrote:This city is booming? Tell that to all the homeless people, and people who happen to live on the southside and westside ... Where on earth did you get the idea the public schools in Chicago have greatly improved? Because that's what the city says? They are lying.

my girlfriend is from the south side, and lives there now, though she's lived in the logan/humbolt area as well. she's told me about how much gentrification is going on in the neighborhood she's from, bridgeport... if i told her "there's serious gentrification going on right now on the south side" she would say "uh, yeah, duh! i'm the one who told you about it!"

my cousins grew up on the west side, near belmont and central. my male cousin used to get beat up by thug assholes when he was a kid. both my cousisns probably got a really modest education. their parents were not wealthy, obviously, or they wouldn't have lived there. nor are their parents well educated. their mom is actually serously mentally mucked up, like mentally she's like a little kid. i don't think she even graduated highschool, though maybe she did.

they both graduated college. my male cousin has basically achieved his dream, to work alongside nature. he's working for the Department of Natural Resources. and my female cousin is working her way up the management chain of a high-end interior design type place. both of them have purchased homes in the suburbs, which is more than i can say for myself.

my girlfriend's education was in the chicago public school system, on the south side. neither of her parents went to college, and her mom barely finished highschool. she was just telling me the other day about how in 8th grade, because their school (which she described as "one of the best in the CPS system") was understaffed, their class basically had no teacher, and she didn't spend her time in class anyways, because they had her *teaching a kindergarten class*!!! how fucked up is that? what a terrible school system!! and right now, she is finishing up grad school with an incredible GPA. in her case, it's very clear that she's a prime example of how the education and attention you receive from your parents at a very young age is incredibly valuable, probably at least as much as the schooling itself, if not moreso. in her case, i'd say it's clearly "moreso". her work ethic is the reason she's accomplishing so much with her life. and she's a product of the south side, and the south side CPS system.

my grandfather grew up in an orphanage. his father had something like 10 kids or so, some absurd number... he has more brothers and sisters than i could keep track of without trying really hard. and his father worked at an orphanage, and that was part of his pay, was that he and his kids got to live there. he ertainly didn't attend college, and i am curious to know where he went to school and for how long... his wife spoke polish and english equally well (her father never even learned english) and she was able to work nights as the manager of a crew of cleaning ladies, since she could translate. they had my mom and the aunt that had the cousins i talked about. my mom didn't go to college either, and she's managed to work her way up to the point where she's working in IT doing financial shit for a company she's been with so long, if she tried to quit and then come back, they couldn't possibly hire her, even though she's got like 15 years experience working there, because in the time she's been there, they put in a rule that they'll only hire college grads. my dad didn't go to college, and he worked as an engineer for an aircraft manufacturer before his current position engineering at Shure. neither of them got a great education. neither of them grew up at all privilidged. they both had parents who were working at least one job each, or more. both of their mothers worked to help out with money, which 50 years ago was a much bigger deal than today, now that it's basically the norm.

if it isn't clear, my point is that bitching about how bad an education system is, as far as i'm concerned, that's crap. teach your kids on your own when they're young, and they'll get the most out of school as they can. teach them dedication and hard work (that's something that comes from the parents, not from school), and they'll be able to build a life for themselves, and their kids will be able to do better, and so on. i realize racial biases play into things, but again, there are so many examples of non-white people who do this exact same thing and to even greater degrees than what my family's done in chicago.

my grandma, the one who worked the cleaning crew, she and i had a conversation maybe 8 or 10 years ago, before alzheimers destroyed her... i was complaining about how i was a college grad getting paid around $20K a year to do very complex tech-related work, for a very small company, that was making my jackass boss a multimillionaire. she flipped out on me, and told me to be happy i had a job, and to do whatever my boss told me to do, and even if i have a college degree, if he told me to clean a toilet, i should clean the toilet!! i think that's nuts. but it's an attitude like hers that made it possible for me to have the attitude i have today, and its the too-prevailent complete absence of that kind of attitude that ensures there will always be people who don't do shit to help themselves.

my ex-girlfriend was a social worker for years, working with super-poor people and foster kids in the worst parts of the south, west and north sides. and the stories she had to tell, about how many of these people were dirt poor, and would take on foster kids so they could get money, and then treat the kids like shit, like property, basically like slaves, it was disgusting. she told me once about one of the mothers, who was way overweight (which should not be possible if you're dirt poor) who would try and send her, a social worker, out to buy cigarettes for her so she didn't have to leave the couch. understand this, my ex is as sympathetic and optimistic a person as you'll meet, she's not a hater *at all*. the opposite. so don't try and read some bias into this. this is the fact of the matter as far as the unmerited sense of entitlement that allows people to live shit lives in shit conditions and never get out of it. to take on foster kids, in addition to their own kids, as a source of income, and then do jack shit for any of these kids. and worse, to set a terrible example.

but go ahead and imply or say outright that Daley is somehow to blame for the imbalance in this city, and that the bad school system makes it so people can't do well to help themselves.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:This city is booming? Tell that to all the homeless people, and people who happen to live on the southside and westside ... Where on earth did you get the idea the public schools in Chicago have greatly improved? Because that's what the city says? They are lying.

my girlfriend is from the south side, and lives there now, though she's lived in the logan/humbolt area as well. she's told me about how much gentrification is going on in the neighborhood she's from, bridgeport... if i told her "there's serious gentrification going on right now on the south side" she would say "uh, yeah, duh! i'm the one who told you about it!"

my cousins grew up on the west side, near belmont and central. my male cousin used to get beat up by thug assholes when he was a kid. both my cousisns probably got a really modest education. their parents were not wealthy, obviously, or they wouldn't have lived there. nor are their parents well educated. their mom is actually serously mentally mucked up, like mentally she's like a little kid. i don't think she even graduated highschool, though maybe she did.

they both graduated college. my male cousin has basically achieved his dream, to work alongside nature. he's working for the Department of Natural Resources. and my female cousin is working her way up the management chain of a high-end interior design type place. both of them have purchased homes in the suburbs, which is more than i can say for myself.

my girlfriend's education was in the chicago public school system, on the south side. neither of her parents went to college, and her mom barely finished highschool. she was just telling me the other day about how in 8th grade, because their school (which she described as "one of the best in the CPS system") was understaffed, their class basically had no teacher, and she didn't spend her time in class anyways, because they had her *teaching a kindergarten class*!!! how fucked up is that? what a terrible school system!! and right now, she is finishing up grad school with an incredible GPA. in her case, it's very clear that she's a prime example of how the education and attention you receive from your parents at a very young age is incredibly valuable, probably at least as much as the schooling itself, if not moreso. in her case, i'd say it's clearly "moreso". her work ethic is the reason she's accomplishing so much with her life. and she's a product of the south side, and the south side CPS system.

my grandfather grew up in an orphanage. his father had something like 10 kids or so, some absurd number... he has more brothers and sisters than i could keep track of without trying really hard. and his father worked at an orphanage, and that was part of his pay, was that he and his kids got to live there. he ertainly didn't attend college, and i am curious to know where he went to school and for how long... his wife spoke polish and english equally well (her father never even learned english) and she was able to work nights as the manager of a crew of cleaning ladies, since she could translate. they had my mom and the aunt that had the cousins i talked about. my mom didn't go to college either, and she's managed to work her way up to the point where she's working in IT doing financial shit for a company she's been with so long, if she tried to quit and then come back, they couldn't possibly hire her, even though she's got like 15 years experience working there, because in the time she's been there, they put in a rule that they'll only hire college grads. my dad didn't go to college, and he worked as an engineer for an aircraft manufacturer before his current position engineering at Shure. neither of them got a great education. neither of them grew up at all privilidged. they both had parents who were working at least one job each, or more. both of their mothers worked to help out with money, which 50 years ago was a much bigger deal than today, now that it's basically the norm.

if it isn't clear, my point is that bitching about how bad an education system is, as far as i'm concerned, that's crap. teach your kids on your own when they're young, and they'll get the most out of school as they can. teach them dedication and hard work (that's something that comes from the parents, not from school), and they'll be able to build a life for themselves, and their kids will be able to do better, and so on. i realize racial biases play into things, but again, there are so many examples of non-white people who do this exact same thing and to even greater degrees than what my family's done in chicago.

my grandma, the one who worked the cleaning crew, she and i had a conversation maybe 8 or 10 years ago, before alzheimers destroyed her... i was complaining about how i was a college grad getting paid around $20K a year to do very complex tech-related work, for a very small company, that was making my jackass boss a multimillionaire. she flipped out on me, and told me to be happy i had a job, and to do whatever my boss told me to do, and even if i have a college degree, if he told me to clean a toilet, i should clean the toilet!! i think that's nuts. but it's an attitude like hers that made it possible for me to have the attitude i have today, and its the too-prevailent complete absence of that kind of attitude that ensures there will always be people who don't do shit to help themselves.

my ex-girlfriend was a social worker for years, working with super-poor people and foster kids in the worst parts of the south, west and north sides. and the stories she had to tell, about how many of these people were dirt poor, and would take on foster kids so they could get money, and then treat the kids like shit, like property, basically like slaves, it was disgusting. she told me once about one of the mothers, who was way overweight (which should not be possible if you're dirt poor) who would try and send her, a social worker, out to buy cigarettes for her so she didn't have to leave the couch. understand this, my ex is as sympathetic and optimistic a person as you'll meet, she's not a hater *at all*. the opposite. so don't try and read some bias into this. this is the fact of the matter as far as the unmerited sense of entitlement that allows people to live shit lives in shit conditions and never get out of it. to take on foster kids, in addition to their own kids, as a source of income, and then do jack shit for any of these kids. and worse, to set a terrible example.

but go ahead and imply or say outright that Daley is somehow to blame for the imbalance in this city, and that the bad school system makes it so people can't do well to help themselves.

Who else is there to blame? Mayor Daley is the jackass boss, we are all cleaning toilets...
For one Humbolt and Logan and Belmont/Central area would be considered paradise compared to some of the neighborhoods I'm talking about....deep west side, deep south side....drive through....they look like a fucking warzone, burnt up cars crumbling buildings.....
They don't plow those streets too often, they aren't nice and clean...
The bad school system DOES make it so people can't do well for themselves. If they don't teach you how to fucking read how the fuck are you spossed to get that college degree? Sometimes parents have to work 3 jobs to feed everyone thus there is no time to sit and teach them how to read, that's what public school is for.....The public school system in Chicago is widely regarded as the worst in the country. Chicago is known worldwide for it's crime and corruption. Should I not blame the man in charge of it? Should I blame the lazy kids for not somehow going out and buying better textbooks and hiring tutors in their free time?
Unless you come up through the shitty school system here, you don't understand how bad it is. Unless you grow up in a shitty neighborhood here, you don't understand just how depressing it is to see them building more shining monuments to yuppies downtown, while my street has had an enormous hole in it for 2 years. They cut service on my train line, so now I can't get to work. Should I think the city is just run wonderfully?
Daley is in charge, thus it's Daley's fault. Fuck him.
Who'd be better? I have no clue, as this city is pretty much a dictatorship there is noone around with the balls to actually come out and try.
Jesse Jackson Jr. is an idiot, as well...don't get me wrong, he's the last person who'd fix shit.

Marsupialized wrote:Sometimes parents have to work 3 jobs to feed everyone thus there is no time to sit and teach them how to read, that's what public school is for.....The public school system in Chicago is widely regarded as the worst in the country. Chicago is known worldwide for it's crime and corruption. Should I not blame the man in charge of it?

if you're working 3 jobs to feed everyone, and don't have time to teach your kids to read, i'm sorry, it's cold to say it, but you were a fucking fool to have kids. if you're not smart enough to know that unprotected sex can result in kids, or you do know it and you're not in a position to feed your family and raise them but you knock chicks up anyways, you get zero sympathy from me. i loathe you.

regarded as the worst in the country, is it? i don't know that i can disupte it, cause i don't know, but i'd ask for your credible source, please.

and as far as chicago's worldwide rep for crime and corruption, if you're blaming Daley, you've missed the boat there, that rep is from before he was born. it's got nothing to do with Daley and everything to do with Capone.

that was my funny experience with central america... people there thought Chicago = Al Capone + Michael Jordan. that's chicago.

sorry about the train service and road condition and the burnt-up cars. i guess it's easy for me, not being there, to at least blame the burnt up cars on your neighbors rather than the mayor. the train, or busses, that's a great point, and an incontrovertable one... the preferential treatment with regard to public transit can be pinned directly on the mayor, and it's a great example of how the system makes it harder for poor people than rich people.

but again, is it any different in other big cities? NYC has mad public transport, yes, but what about others? how is it in LA? DC (which is by some accounts the 4th largest city, after chicago) isn't any better than chicago with respect to public transport, or in many if any respects for that matter. in fact, it's almost identical in a lot of respects. except there, the worst neighborhoods, with the burnt-up cars, are on the other side of a river, a clear boundary of "do not go there". and the disparity between rich and poor seems much more pronounced, to me, with a smaller middle class.

and in terms of affordable safe neighborhoods, there really aren't many if any. you can get *somewhat* affordable (though still really expensive) or *somewhat* safe, but in general, even the most expensive of areas aren't as safe as chicago, with some exceptions up NW, on the fancy side of rock creek park. DC is smaller than chicago. and it's got much more tax money coming in than chicago does. and it's the home of our *federal* government. and it's way worse in so many respects.

okay, the trains there are cleaner, there's more natural trees, and they actually have a real recycling program. but in terms of crime and rich/poor, in my experience it sucks compared to chicago.

consider the difference between northern cities vs southern cities. take a look at this list. of the 100 biggest US cities

http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/uscities_100.html

the next largest northern city is Philly, which i personally know to be a shithole. after that is Detriot. then Indianapolis, then Columbus OH, the Baltimore... maybe it's just really, really fucking hard to run a huge northern city well.

Just because corruption was here before Daley, does that excuse the fact he allows it to continue? Not just allows it, but defends it and holds it up at something sacred. Corruption and incompetence is a vile, vile thing when it comes to politics. I am of the opinion it should be exposed and stamped out as soon as it rears it's head...not 'Oh, that's just how it is in Chicago...look, we have nice trees in the rich people park"
Your argument seems to be that everyone should just get rich and not be poor anymore, if you are poor it's your own damn fault.
That is a snooty asshole way of looking at the world. Things are not that simple. There is a real hard world out there. There are people born with massive massive roadblocks in front of them, and some people just can't get past them....are they failures and worthless? I don't think they are, I think they deserve clean streets and train service and nice parks like rich college kids and dumb gold coast housewives do.
Poor people have too many kids because there is no education for them otherwise, by design.
"Oh it's a big city, there is always crime and corruption"
Only because people just deal with, and don't do anything to stop it or change it.