[marothisu]

^ I tend to agree. A lot of the people who come here to NYC for example, at least younger people (new or recent college graduates) go big time on the media vision of the city. Probably back in the 90s it was more accessible as things were more affordable overall, but it's still going strong today. I mean, lower Manhattan (SoHo, West Village, TriBeCa, etc) has really no comparable anywhere in the US but still out of reach for most to live in unless they are trust fund kids or legitimately well off. Many people live in less than ideal conditions there who have good jobs just so they can live around there (i.e. 2 bedrooms carved out of a small living room, and the ability to fit almost nothing more in it than a twin sized bed).

Chicago is definitely seen as "not sexy" to a lot, where apparently high levels of violent crime permeate every corner of the city somehow, and it's about 20 degrees colder than reality. One of our neighbors here is the head or one of the heads of a small country's embassy here. When saying we were relocating back to Chicago it was definitely a regurgitation of media sound bytes like these. I think there was a small amount of surprise when I said that the majority of where the city lives doesn't see some high levels of violent crime and it's not in the negatives year round.

My wife is a marketer (with a masters in it) and the first time she spent a weekend with me in Chicago when I was splitting time between there and NYC, she immediately pointed out that Chicago's marketing is really, really bad and it needs a new marketing campaign. The reality versus what's in the media is pretty crazy actually. There is some truth to what the media says of course, but they try and paint the entire city as if there's murder happening literally everywhere on a daily basis which is just extremely far from the truth (so far this year, 76% of the city's homicides occurred where only 25% of the city's population resides for example).

Between when I'd first moved to Chicago and now, it's definitely attracted some more diversity in some areas (whether racial, business, or in terms of personalities) but still could do a lot more. There's obviously many problems, but pretty much every city has problems. I hate to be a pessimist but there's no such thing as a perfect city.

Chicago basically needs a brand new marketing campaign - preferably not run by people in their 50s (no offense to anyone) and kind of smash the decades old stereotypes that the media loves to play up.