So, up until now I’ve kept my posts here pretty positive. I’ve just tried to cover the most exciting moments of living in Chicago. But I’m not always excited. And it’s not just about Chicago. Right now I’m scared, the same way a lot of Americans are scared. I’m on the job hunt, knowing that my current position will end in two weeks. And I don’t know that I will end up in Chicago when this all pans out. I don’t know what will happen to me, and it’s scary. And I feel, like a lot of Americans, that I have worked too hard and have spent too many years in school to be passing my resume out like a cheap paper flier, hoping that someone will read it before chucking it in the recycle bin. (Better yet, that someone will read it and decide to do something about it before discarding it.) And I am too old and my parents too hard-working for me to move home and place added burden on them right now.
And the thing is, I really enjoy Chicago. It’s not as perfect as I probably make it sound in my earlier blogs, as anyone who lives in a place for awhile would understand. Utopias don’t exist, and I never put those expectations on Chicago. I mean, I love the architecture. Of course, above anything else, that is what Chicago is famous for. I still feel a thrill when I walk downtown. I think we all have those dreams of being successful in the big city. Living, shopping and working downtown. Enjoying the night life. And I had hoped to eventually be there, too. I still sort of hope for it, but at the same time, after all the time it takes to get to that point, I imagine I’ll be tired of living in the city…
I love public transportation but I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life. It’s a relief for the strained environment, and there are so many different kinds of people on the bus or the train. You never know who you’ll bump into. Of course, that’s not always a good thing. I’ve seen good things on the El and I’ve seen (or smelled) not so good things. Today I was riding to work and I could smell soggy winter on people. You can tell that winter coats have been worn repeatedly for weeks, and for a lot of people they won’t be cleaned until April. Sometimes, if you sit on the back of the El, you’ll smell urine. It’s disgusting really.
But I get to read all the way to work. I get to step off of the El and walk all the way to the office without setting a foot outside in the snow. (Yay, Pedway!!! Your inventors were genius!!) I can listen to my music and people watch. I can go to work without having to dig my car out of the snow! If the roads are hell, I still get to work. It’s kind of amazing, really.
Sometimes people on the El do nice things for each other. Sometimes a person who can barely afford to eat will offer his food to other people on the train. Most times someone will stand up and offer their seat to someone who needs it more. On certain Friday or Saturday nights, everyone on the El will chit chat with each other about the night’s exploits. Occasionally, a boy and a girl will meet and hit it off (okay, I’ve never actually seen this happen, but judging by the number of El mentions on Craigslist Missed Connections, it must happen!)
Sometimes people are rude. Today I got scrunched against the window next to a giant backpack that would poke into my side repeatedly. And when I said excuse me to get off, its owner barely moved out of my way. Sometimes I get my toes stepped on. Often I get slammed in the shoulder by an oversized purse.
You know, the El has its good and bad points. The bus is much the same, except that it takes forever and I’ve had to stand outside waiting in the freezing cold for 20+ minutes too many nights (thank you, #22). (It’s a shame that the CTA is $252 million in debt right now. Welcome to America circa 2009.)
The thing is, I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this rat race. Part of me loves it. Part of me finds it so exhilarating. But honestly, as lame as this sounds, I’m a bit of a homebody. So, not having a nice space of my own is very unsettling. I currently sublet the second bedroom of a condo owned by a married couple in Uptown. I like my roommates. They’re really good people. But they are expecting a baby now and I feel like the third wheel. The ultimate third wheel. And it really bothers me that everything outside of my room is theirs. I was so spoiled when I was going to graduate school in Knoxville. I had a spacious one-bedroom apartment with a pool out back. And it cost $460/month. You can’t find a studio for under $550 in Chicago (and that’s a cheap and teeny one).
Now, I knew coming in that the cost of living is much higher here. It is, after all, the third-biggest city in the country. And I felt as though I were prepared for this fact. But every time I go to the grocery store and spend $50 bucks for one week’s worth of groceries (for one person), I cringe. I always stop at Kroger when I’m in Toledo and buy two weeks worth of groceries for a little more than $50 before returning to Chicago. I mean, the sales tax alone is insane. The fact is, when the cost of living is higher, you’re supposed to get paid in proportion. So, I should actually be making enough money where these costs seem reasonable. I guess the fact that I don’t make proportionate money really puts it all into perspective.
There are some other serious cons about living in Chicago. I really hate winter here, but I plan to live in the Midwest, and it doesn’t vary that much from Chicago, to Toledo, to Minneapolis, to Indy. This winter has been exceptionally rough on all of us. We’re expecting another 8 inches by tomorrow afternoon and the thought of digging my car out of the snow again makes me feel physically ill.
Chicago is, in many ways, a glorified college town. To many people, this is a good thing. To me, it’s just played out. Luckily, there are many more offerings in this city aside from its bars. But when you’re young in Chicago, most people want to continue that college lifestyle. I think I’ve had about all I can stand of Wrigleyville until the Cubs’ season starts.
Chicago is crowded, like any large city. So many people, so little space. And I have issues with space, as we’ve already seen.
Traffic sucks. It takes half an hour to go five miles. Traffic is heavy during rush hour, but it’s heavy any time of day. And Chicago drivers are rude. I’m lucky I was already kind of an aggressive, occasionally rude driver when I got here. But, you can avoid traffic by taking public transportation. That, however, is a bit of a strain on those of us who love driving as much as I do, though.
O’hare sucks. When I didn’t live here I thought O’hare was the greatest airport ever. I just thought it was so cool in its immensity. Now that I live here I know that the flights are almost always delayed. Even when the weather’s fine (like when I flew to Knoxville in November).
Despite the negative aspects of this city, I think Forbes was sorely mistaken when they named Chicago the third most miserable city in the U.S. First, look around Forbes. All of America is pretty miserable right now. Is it really necessary to highlight the “most” miserable when the whole country is pretty darn depressed already? Poor timing. Second, as far as Chicago goes, there are so many reasons why people put up with my above-mentioned cons because the benefits are so much weightier.
Chicago summers are exceptional. I only got a taste, and I’m feeling totally ripped off that, as it stands now, it looks like I will have put in a full Chicago winter and not gotten the pay-off of the Chicago summer. You can walk everywhere in the summer. There is so much to do in every square inch of this town that you can simply walk a few miles to a new event everyday. I love walking. When I lived in Knoxville there was a grocery store up the road half a mile, but no sidewalk. That drove me nuts. You’d never have that problem here. In other places, people don’t conceive of walking a mile and a half to the drugstore, even on a gorgeous day. Here, that’s normal. And, even though I’m not supposed to run, I love running by the lake. There is nothing like that gorgeous Chicago skyline, paired with the lake breezes and a good endorphin rush.
Other pros, many of which I’ve written about in previous posts, include the architecture, the museums, the Pedway, downtown, Christmastime, and sooo many different things to do or to eat. I mean, until this post, I’ve pretty much only glorified this city. There are so many wonderful things here.
Living in a city of this size is just not for everyone. I don’t think I’ve really figured out whether it’s for me yet. I’d like more time to do so. Which means, someone needs to hire me. Fast. Because my lease is up at the end of March. And if some Chicago company has not scooped me up by then, I’m out. Of course, I’ll still be looking for jobs here, primarily. I’m just not finished with Chicago, yet.
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2 comments:
Emily, nice post. I think you did a great job capturing the kind of things that are going through the heads of a lot of people in this country. I don't know if this will be helpful for you, but sometimes I find it helpful to compare the kinds of worries we are having with the kinds of worries people outside of this country are having. People are losing their jobs here and having to consolidate households, which is normal for citizens of Mexico, for example. "Undesirable jobs" are being sought after; jobs we would have gone on welfare before taking 10 years ago are jobs that are in the realm of consideration now.
Personally, I'm glad that my mother is still 10 years away from retirement and has some time to hopefully catch a market rebound before she needs to start drawing down on her retirement fund. I can't imagine how scary it's going to be to decide "yes, I have enough to live on for the rest of my life, however long that is" and retire. With the way the market has behaved lately and with most people having their retirement too hard into stocks (thanks to people chasing higher returns and trying to avoid deterioration of wealth by taxes and inflation), there are a lot of people who were going to retire now but are now suddenly at least 5 years away from that.
Your cost of living discussion is relevant as well. I think it would be interesting to look at whether people leave areas of high cost of living during times like these. During the good times, we have a lot of extra income, and the sad parts of society seem even more sad. We look for ways to reduce or eliminate these parts of society, which means higher taxes, which translates into higher cost of living. It's not really that you're in a big city; city living is highly efficient, because infrastructure investments are spread across a much larger number of tax payers. The cost of living is high in Chicago because of government policy that makes sense in great times of prosperity, but really hurt during times of recession. Obama is trying hard to fix this by cutting taxes on wages and reducing the cost of domestic debt and providing demand for construction, IT, and other services by creating government projects. But each of these costs a lot of money, and at the same time we are spending trillions, we are seeing less tax income to begin with (since people are working less, there is less income tax revenue; and they are spending less, so there is less sales tax income).
Before all of this started, we were posting regular $500b deficits, meaning we were already spending more than we brought in. So what worries me is how we are going to fund this extra spending and tax cuts? We will print new dollars, which means inflation (which means the savings of all these individuals who are out of work will buy fewer necessities) and foreign debt to China (which means you and I will be paying the interest on this debt for our lifetimes, and it also means China has a lot of leverage over us as a country).
It is a huge gamble. The idea is that all this government spending will spur private investment enough to take over and sustain that increased demand before the government spending faucet is turned off. Otherwise, the construction companies will hire people to do these government projects, but as soon as they're over, the companies will have to lay off again.
It is a scary time, and sometimes I get the distinct feeling that the government doesn't really know what to do about it. It has very few tools available to it, one of which is spending, and if all you have is a hammer, then everything might look like a nail.
I can tell your post did a good job of capturing the thoughts and worries that are out there, because it got me thinking about all these things again. I wish we could re-do the last couple decades with the knowledge of what it's like not to have our country's economy expanding without bound. Maybe we wouldn't have taken out so much debt. Maybe we wouldn't have let our average personal savings rate drop below 1%(!). Maybe we wouldn't have created so many government programs that need tax funding. Maybe we wouldn't have invaded countries that never provoked us. Maybe we would have been a little less arrogant.
Good luck with your job search, Emily. I hope it is brief, and I hope it brings you to wherever you decide is best -- Chicago or elsewhere. I don't know what all kinds of jobs you are looking into, but if there's anything I can help with, let me know.
I'll tell you what scares me even more... While our country is vulnerable and desperate for a bailout, other rich nations are investing huge amounts to buy up large portions of our corporations. I mean, come on, we don't even own the Chrysler building anymore. I don't think the majority of Americans even realize this is happening, but even if they did, there's not much they could do about it. By the time we do recover from this recession, foreign governments will have more financial control over this country than our own government does. I mean, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but I just don't think America will ever be what it once was. Not only is our government going to be immersed in the kind of debt from which it can never recover (it already was before the recession), but it is going to owe a lot of money to countries like China. And other already-rich countries will grow wealthier and more powerful as our economy begins to recover because they seized the opportunity while we were down. Our vulnerabilities only stand to increase.
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