An excerpt of a conversation between two Chicagoans on the decline and fall of a once great city. They talk about some of the reasons I left in 2020. I’ll say it again… Chicago and Illinois left me long before I left them.
The city of Chicago made me who I am. When I was growing up there in the ‘50s and ‘60s—and for decades after—it was one of the world’s great cities. For all of the poverty on the South Side where I spent my childhood, teenage years, and early 20s, it was also a tremendously vital place with thriving middle-class communities, restaurants, nightlife, and shopping. My friends and I rode our bikes and played stickball in the alleys without fear. My parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins built lives there that they were proud of, where they could live with dignity and in relative safety.
Chicago’s Great Unravelling – Glenn Loury