CHICAGO | General Discussions

[marothisu]

City and MSA employment data came out a few days ago for December 2021. The city's number of employed persons for December 2021 was higher than any December back to 1990 except for December 1999 and December 2000 which were each slightly higher. It was slightly higher than December 2019 right before the pandemic and lockdowns. It was even a little higher than July 2019 and right under June 2019.

This is for not seasonally adjusted, for the record.

[the urban politician]

Newest marketing campaign

• Video Link

[SIGSEGV]

too clever by half imo.

[Kngkyle]

That video is a little cringe, but some of the posters are pretty neat.

https://chicagonotinchicago.com/#contributions-section

[marothisu]

It's interesting but it also feels a little "cheap"

[ChiMIchael]

I don’t like the name dropping route. Forcing adjacency to certain cities won't make Chicago like them. A better angle is how Chicago contributed to make the US a world power.

[Handro]

Focusing on how important Chicago was 100+ years ago is stupid and diminishing. Also no one from, say, Brazil is going to visit Chicago because spray paint was invented here (wtf?)

Give people in 2022 a reason to want to see and experience Chicago.

A good case can be made that Chicago is “The American City”. Big shoulders, wide streets, brash and original. The most successful boomtown after America was no longer so influenced by Europe. That can get people interested, especially foreign tourists who don’t care that some of the first soap operas were here (again, wtf?)

This is absolutely terrible. A perfectly shallow failure to represent our one-term mayor.

[ChiMIchael]

Honestly this city could use a cultural revolution. Something that I don't think get discussed enough is that, outside of the dysfunction, the city doesn’t seem to have much real culture.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by ChiMIchael

Honestly this city could use a cultural revolution. Something that I don't think get discussed enough is that, outside of the dysfunction, the city doesn’t seem to have much real culture.

Are you talking about uniquely Chicago "culture" or just cultures in general? I'd actually say in 2022 this is something not unique to this city if you are just talking about uniqur city culture unless, at least in the US (minus a few places like New Orleans).

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Handro

Focusing on how important Chicago was 100+ years ago is stupid and diminishing. Also no one from, say, Brazil is going to visit Chicago because spray paint was invented here (wtf?)

Give people in 2022 a reason to want to see and experience Chicago.

A good case can be made that Chicago is “The American City”. Big shoulders, wide streets, brash and original. The most successful boomtown after America was no longer so influenced by Europe. That can get people interested, especially foreign tourists who don’t care that some of the first soap operas were here (again, wtf?)

This is absolutely terrible. A perfectly shallow failure to represent our one-term mayor.

Interesting

I think this campaign has enough of a sense of humor to it that it wouldn’t be taken seriously

But I have long felt that Chicago just markets itself so poorly that it’s criminal. Just being a place that people from Michigan and Iowa visit to take in some cool skyscrapers………Goddamn, come on man. Really?!!

Everyone knows that there is way the hell more going on here. Why can’t anyone finally get this point across?

[ChiMIchael]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Are you talking about uniquely Chicago "culture" or just cultures in general? I'd actually say in 2022 this is something not unique to this city if you are just talking about uniqur city culture unless, at least in the US (minus a few places like New Orleans).

Something culturally/artistically/leisure-wise unique to Chicago that outsiders can resonate with. I think food scene does that, but some might argue that's weakened.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Newest marketing campaign

]

So cringe worthy I couldn't even finish watching it. So bad the comment section in youtube has been turned off.

Choose Chicago should take the lead here. But their budget keeps getting gutted. Chicago needs 5-10x's as much more money to move the needle esp with the international set.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by ChiMIchael

Something culturally/artistically/leisure-wise unique to Chicago that outsiders can resonate with. I think food scene does that, but some might argue that's weakened.

Agree, although there's really not much of that going on in the US these days minus a handful of places. Unfortunately...I have no hope for it but you know.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Interesting

I think this campaign has enough of a sense of humor to it that it wouldn’t be taken seriously

But I have long felt that Chicago just markets itself so poorly that it’s criminal. Just being a place that people from Michigan and Iowa visit to take in some cool skyscrapers………Goddamn, come on man. Really?!!

Everyone knows that there is way the hell more going on here. Why can’t anyone finally get this point across?

That question has been asked by Chicagoans since the city was founded. And I mean verbatim.

Necessarily, when the adherents of two cities start an argument, they are confined to concrete points. They talk about opera and theatres and buildings and hotels and stores, and seldom touch upon such subtle things as city spirit. For spirit is a hard thing to deal with and a harder thing to prove. Yet “greatness knows itself.” Chicago unquestionably knows that it is great, and that its greatness is of the spirit. But the Chicagoan, debating in favor of his city, is unable to “get that over,” and is therefore obliged to fall back upon two last, invariable defenses: the department store or Marshall Field & Co. and the Blackstone Hotel.

Julian Street, Abroad at Home, 1914

There’s no real answer because the world has been interested in Chicago for its moral deviancy and extreme contrasts from the very beginning. It’s the reason Chicago is culturally famous.

We’re talking pre-Civil War before the fire, and Chicago is only a twenty-year-old city, and there were already a flurry of articles about “two Chicagos” and “terrible divides.”

There are interviews from the 1800s with Chicagoans, where they become distressed and frustrated with reporters, because all visitors want to do is go to the stockyards to watch the slaughter or meet a gangster. People who visited would rave about the amazing architecture and great restaurants and food, and still insist on the blood and guts and crime.

Portland and Austin can do a little bit of advertising and a “Keep City Weird” slogan and run with it, but Chicago has an unrelenting history to deal with and marketing doesn’t really make a dent.

And compared to other U.S. cities, there’s an amazing, tumultuous and thought-provoking history that occasionally comes across in media, but it’s hard to turn that into a tourist activity.

To describe Chicago, one would need all the superlatives set in a row. Grandest, flattest,—muddiest, dustiest,—hottest, coldest,—wettest, driest,—farthest north, south, east, and west from other places, consequently most central,—best harbor on Lake Michigan, worst harbor and smallest river any great commercial city ever lived on,—most elegant in architecture, meanest in hovel-propping,—wildest in speculation, solidest in value,—proudest in self-esteem, loudest in self-disparagement,—most lavish, most grasping,—most public-spirited in some things, blindest and darkest on some points of highest interest.

And some poor souls would doubtless add,—most fascinating, or most desolate,—according as one goes there, gay and hopeful, to find troops of prosperous friends, or, lonely and poor, with the distant hope of bettering broken fortunes by struggling among the driving thousands already there on the same errand. There is, perhaps, no place in the world where it is more necessary to take a bright and hopeful view of life, and none where this is more difficult.

Atlantic Monthly, Illinois in Springtime: with a Look at Chicago, 1858

[the urban politician]

^ Yeah this is not a new problem for sure.

I actually disagree with most of you who think that the marketing campaign is “cringe-worthy”

While I don’t know if it will work, I will say that it is very creative. The guy doing that tour is clearly a comedian. Comedy is very much in Chicago’s DNA.

I actually appreciate Lightfoot here trying to do something different than the usual “Come to Chicago and see the sights” campaign. This campaign is very “Chicago”. Comedy + Second City syndrome. The key here is not being too serious.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Agree, although there's really not much of that going on in the US these days minus a handful of places. Unfortunately...I have no hope for it but you know.

the thing Chicago has in spades compared to other, more "culturally relevant" cities is cheap real estate relatively close to downtown plus all the trappings of a major metropolis. getting some kind incentive for artists, musicians, cinematographers, and creatives of all types to come here and ply their trades while would do wonders to start moving the needle back to a place of cultural prominence. why should tiny, expensive Austin (for example) in Texas of all places have more cultural appeal to people under 40 than Chicago???

marothisu does a great job illustrating the under-the-hood stats that Chicago is still an economic powerhouse, but corporate consultants, lawyers, and banking don't really inspire much in the popular media that make people want to visit a place. Neither do very trivial factoids about 19th century history, but that seems to be where the Chicago marketing team is hanging their cap...

[Handro]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Yeah this is not a new problem for sure.

I actually disagree with most of you who think that the marketing campaign is “cringe-worthy”

While I don’t know if it will work, I will say that it is very creative. The guy doing that tour is clearly a comedian. Comedy is very much in Chicago’s DNA.

I actually appreciate Lightfoot here trying to do something different than the usual “Come to Chicago and see the sights” campaign. This campaign is very “Chicago”. Comedy + Second City syndrome. The key here is not being too serious.

Comedy in the lamest sense, sure. The type of comedy that makes the purveyor the punchline because it misses it's market so widely. Chicago is already the butt of jokes in national discourse--a super lame and forgettable attempt to market itself just makes it easier to view the city as a pathetic shell of its former self.

This type of campaign will convince zero average tourists to overlook the narrative of Chicago as a murderous wasteland and come for a visit to see the hotel where brownies were invented in 1906 or whatever. These little facts read like a postcard from Branson, Missouri. The city needs to work on cultivating an image to counter a very strong narrative of decay and violence that has been shouted from the rooftops by some of the most viewed/read media in the country. The (distantly) second image of Chicago that people might hold in their heads is of a big, bold, "wide shouldered" American metropolis on the plains where where daring people of all stripes came to make their way for over a century. Try to recapture the "city on the move" image that faded rapidly since the 1990s.

In fact, "City on the Move" is a 100x better slogan than "Chicago not in Chicago" and it's already done for them.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

That question has been asked by Chicagoans since the city was founded. And I mean verbatim.



There’s no real answer because the world has been interested in Chicago for its moral deviancy and extreme contrasts from the very beginning. It’s the reason Chicago is culturally famous.

We’re talking pre-Civil War before the fire, and Chicago is only a twenty-year-old city, and there were already a flurry of articles about “two Chicagos” and “terrible divides.”

There are interviews from the 1800s with Chicagoans, where they become distressed and frustrated with reporters, because all visitors want to do is go to the stockyards to watch the slaughter or meet a gangster. People who visited would rave about the amazing architecture and great restaurants and food, and still insist on the blood and guts and crime.

Portland and Austin can do a little bit of advertising and a “Keep City Weird” slogan and run with it, but Chicago has an unrelenting history to deal with and marketing doesn’t really make a dent.

And compared to other U.S. cities, there’s an amazing, tumultuous and thought-provoking history that occasionally comes across in media, but it’s hard to turn that into a tourist activity.

Great stuff here

[TR Devlin]

Nelson Algren, Richard Wright, Saul Bellow, Studds Terkel, Mike Royko, Roger Ebert, Hugh Hefner, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman and the Art Ensemble, Henry Threadgill and Air, Joe Segal, Sun Ra, Steve Goodman, John Prine, George Solti, etc.

It was easy for me to come up with this list of names from 1950 to 2000. Off hand, I couldn't come up with a similar list of current names.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Handro

the thing Chicago has in spades compared to other, more "culturally relevant" cities is cheap real estate relatively close to downtown plus all the trappings of a major metropolis. getting some kind incentive for artists, musicians, cinematographers, and creatives of all types to come here and ply their trades while would do wonders to start moving the needle back to a place of cultural prominence. why should tiny, expensive Austin (for example) in Texas of all places have more cultural appeal to people under 40 than Chicago???

marothisu does a great job illustrating the under-the-hood stats that Chicago is still an economic powerhouse, but corporate consultants, lawyers, and banking don't really inspire much in the popular media that make people want to visit a place. Neither do very trivial factoids about 19th century history, but that seems to be where the Chicago marketing team is hanging their cap...

Because Austin is the main college town in the second biggest state in the nation, with weather and terrain similar enough to the West Coast for under-40s priced out of Southern CA who tend to know other people who moved there. It’s not that complicated.

Art and marketing is just the byproduct of that early jostling for wealth and status among newcomers who want to be the big fish in the small pond. People don’t actually relocate for culture except regionally. (Farm->Town>City)

Subsidies and incentives for entertainment and artists don’t move the needle much because they just cement the hierarchy that already exists. And art also needs a receptive audience or else it’s just makework charity.

Truly unique regional cultures are always rooted in something difficult and unpleasant because otherwise that culture would become popular and widespread and not unique at all.

That’s why I am always skeptical about marketing except on a limited scale. It has to be an organic process among likeminded people for genuine perception shifts to occur.


Not to mention, there’s a good argument to be made that brawny working class Chicago was overplayed in past popular culture, and that history nerd Chicago has been a lot more durable as far as local interests go.