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Originally Posted by Halsted & Villagio
Today there is a tendency by Directors to just film downtown, say the movie is set in Chicago, and then shoot the neighborhood scenes for the rest of the movie in someplace like Toronto or Atlanta or LA.
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Shameless does a good job of filming Chicago neighborhoods, although (I guess for budget reasons) they mix in some LA street scenes and a faux-Chicago backlot. They're pretty careful about mixing the two, most of the LA scenes are shot in close-up, no palm trees visible, etc. Usually I can only tell because of the telltale LA sunlight. All of Dick Wolf's Chicago shows include neighborhood scenes also, and Joe Swanberg's films/shows.
I'd say Chicago neighborhoods are getting more screen time than ever before.
A lot of the reluctance for directors is due to cost, on-location filming is very expensive. However, Cinespace is supposed to build a backlot with some Chicago-authentic facades, so hopefully that will help a little bit too (within the constraints of backlot filming).