Quote:
Originally Posted by pip
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But coming from someone that worked in a tourist restaurant in River North I don't want many of these people in my neighborhood. A huge number of tourists are quite closed minded, judgemental, not pleasant and also a huge number are just blah both physically and mentally. Sorry to say that as a conclusion. Tourists don't like people or things that don't fit their bubble and Chicago certainly from housing styles, lifestyles is most certainly 'different'
I view parts of River North and Navy Pier as containment, I would leave there after working thinking good glad I'm going.
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Three things:
First, I think you forget that in actuality only a portion of the tourists who come to Chicago would even want to step foot in a "tourist restaurant." *Most* real tourists - not just suburban day-trippers - are tourists because they *want* to get out of their bubble. So your experience by working there is most definitely a limited experience that has left you at least somewhat closed-minded to the bigger picture. Those aren't the target audience to get into the neighborhoods. I've hosted about 80 visitors to Chicago from around the world and only about two of them were the sort of tourist you describe. Only a few have made the effort to get out into the neighborhoods on their own, but the majority would be happy to go visit other parts of the city if they had time and it was a straight-forward experience. From where I am, people go to Wicker Park, Lincoln Park/Lakeview and the Ukrainian Village. Only a few have even gone to Chinatown or Hyde Park.
Second, as much as we may like to ignore the issue one of the biggest issues with Chicago is that we're simply not as contiguously dense as most other world-class travel destinations. From my guests who venture outside the Michigan Ave/Loop destinations, I frequently hear about how few people there are on the streets, how far apart interesting shops are, etc. Certainly compared to many American cities Chicago is more dense and more pedestrian-friendly, but on an international level (and about half my visitors are international), we're really not. Any effort to get more tourists outside of the central area needs to go hand-in-hand with more dense zoning.
Third, the guests I've had have nearly all left Chicago with a better impression of the city than they had coming in. Of course a few people haven't liked it for whatever reason, but I'm talking over 90% have a great time here even with current limitations. So any changes to encourage people to spend more time in other parts of the city has to be undertaken with some degree of caution - I wouldn't say we need to be overly cautious, but there is a reason the expression "don't mess with a good thing" exists.
