the problem with northern big cities (chicago/NYC)

[datasuspect]

is that the loudest ones who go on and on about urban "culture" are usually 20-something recent college grad transplants from greater and lesser suburbias (read: nowhere).

the native inhabitants of big cities are a lot like the rednecks i deal with in here in texas. largely considered "ignorant" by poorly educated state university types because they don't like sushi, the true "city" folk are every bit as provincial as the most toothless of country folk. this isn't a bad thing. it helps you to become more wise to the world. plus i haven't met an oilfield worker or a ghetto thug who you could con very easily.

yups on the other hand: "marks" in the truest sense of the word.

they usually are very big hearted and more likely to help you out if you're a stranger (as opposed to tightly clutching their courier bag when you walk past them at 2 a.m. on a dark street).

i'm thinking of lincoln park in chicago. i'm thinking my old neighborhood near cullerton and oakley where youngish "artistic" types (the first wave of upwardly mobile cultureless and naive banana republic and backwards baseball cap wearing gentrifiers) have driven up the rents in my childhood ghetto.

don't be too quick to cut down others.

just because someone doesn't enjoy sushi and thai food doesn't make them neanderthals. and it doesn't make you quite as cosmopolitan as you might think you are.

[asthmaticeog]

1. Good post.

Couldn't be truer. Provincialism is provincialism, whatever one's preferred province.

[jpgray]

2. They do support a "not really" poor uni student class

Which believes it is living in urban poverty but in actuality is supported by many social and financial structures that keep it wholly away from real urban poverty. And yes, the condescension and pretensions of knowledge are both insufferable. And I say this as a proud member of aforementioned group! :D

[datasuspect]

3. i have no problem with university education

it's just that what the schools vomit out are largely what friedrich nietszche referred to as "the newspaper reading demimonde of half-wits, shallow pates, and boobs."

oh, and i've read more than the selected paragraphs from "also sprach zarathustra" that are obligatorily included in phil 101 overview textbooks.

[skygazer]

4. The same could be said of rural areas

I come from Vermont which is getting overrun with people who fell in love with the state when they visited from Long Island and Connecticut and decided to buy a house there.

Quite often, the first thing they do on arrival is to change the entire character of the place by doing things like demanding the road by their house get paved, or petitioning to have the noon whistle (that's been blowing every day for the past 130 years) stopped because it bothers their nap, or installing floodlights all over the property or demanding the school bus make a detour to pick up little Johnny who is incapable of walking half a mile to the bus stop like every other kid in town.

In short, they turn it into Connecticut or Long Island, all the while making fun of the people who actually live there, talking right in front of them about how "quaint" and "old-fashioned" they are - people who I know damn well are just as sharp as anyone I've ever met anywhere else.

Then they wonder why we're "unfriendly." :eyes:

[Goblinmonger]

5. Sounds like the rich Chicago crowd

that comes up to Wisconsin and treats it like their own personal playground. Hate them.

[mark414]

11. beat me to it

i grew up and spent the first 17 years of my life 10 minutes from Lake Geneva....:banghead:

[Goblinmonger]

18. I live in Oshkosh

and we quit camping in Door County on the weekends during the summer. Unbearable assholes.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

21. Well if that's the way you feel about FIB's that's just fine by us.

I'll gladly take my vacation and money to another state.

I'm sure all the people in Lake Geneva, the Wisconsin Dells and Door County that actually don't mind taking our FIB money, feel the same way you do about us "unbearable assholes".

[skygazer]

26. Do you act like an asshole?

If not, the post was probably not directed at you. I can't speak for the poster but I know when I complain about the people who move to Vermont, I'm certainly not complaining about all of them. Like so many things, the vocal jerks who are usually a minority, make things tough for the non-jerks.

This is the problem. Rather than acknowledge that we rural people have a right to be upset with the actions of some of the people who visit, we're essentially threatened that you'll take your money elsewhere. In other words, we just have to put up with it and quit our whining.

If that's your attitude, please don't decide to take your money to Vermont.

[mark414]

27. christ, why does everybody here take every little thing so personally?

did i or my fellow wisconsinite say, "hey, that mohinoaklawnillinois is a real unbearable asshole?"

no.

there's a lot of good people from illinois - some of my family are hardcore FIBs, but there's a lot of assholes too, just like there's a lot of assholes every where. and i've had plenty of good encounters with vacationers from south of the border, but by and large it is mostly negative experiences, and most of the people i have run into ARE unbearable assholes. it really is like an invasion, and it's always a lot of disrespect and disregard for the locals.

i thought you chicago folks were supposed to tough - thicken yer skin up a little bit and come on up to Wisco; if you're on this board then that makes you alright by me.

[Goblinmonger]

29. It's like geometry

All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

All FIBS are from Illinois, but not all people from Illinois are FIBS.

Tell you what. On any given weekend during the summer, you come up to Door County with a stack of $20s. You and I will go around and when we see an unsufferable asshole, I will give you $20 if they are from WI and you give me $20 if they are from Illinois. Guess who's going to come out on top in this one?

I realize that tourism is important to WI. I realize there are a lot of cool people in Illinois. I hang out with a lot of them. Why can't you realize that there are a large amount of rich assholes who come up to Wisconsin with a sense that they are entitled to whatever they want and we should comply? Why can't you see that an attitude like that would piss us off?

[RetroLounge]

24. Take away their money

and Door County, Lake Geneva, and the Dells die a slow ugly death...

We may not like them, but we like their money.

RL

[Goblinmonger]

30. I realize that

but couldn't they come up and vacation here and not be huge douchebags?

[RetroLounge]

31. Not every person from Illinois that comes here

is a douchebag...

Okay, most of them might be, but not everyone.

I mean, I'm from Chicago originally, and no one has called me a douchebag.

:D

RL

[1gobluedem]

6. Very well said

I have friends in rural NH who feel the same way.

[Burma Jones]

7. It's just too hard to market reality

and it's usually the loudest voices that are trying to sell you (or more likely themselves) something

But, as a product of "nowhere" as you put it (and my Urban Steelworker Grandparents and Dad from Gary, IN worked very hard to move us out to "nowhere") and, as what I guess you would call a Yup, I ask that you don't be too quick to cut down others. Just because someone likes Sushi and Thai Food doesn't make them a shallow loudmouth, and it doesn't make you a Working Class Hero.

[datasuspect]

9. "working class?"

i don't even work.

not everything is personal doncha know? you do realize that i wasn't speaking to you personally, i'm sorry if i cannot exhaustively qualify everything i say here, but don't be so quick to snap at me.

and yes suburbia is nowhere, i will always contend this. it was DESIGNED to be that way.

cities are somewhere, rural areas are somewhere, prefab, generic, xanax-consuming regions like master planned communities are nightmares, and although some people escape it intact, the products of that environment are very often quite scary.

[XNASA]

8. I know what you mean.

I was at the Continental at Chicago and California until 3am last Friday night.

Those people were clueless.

[datasuspect]

10. you seem like you've been around

and i'm quite sure you know what i mean (at least where chicago is concerned). they should start calling many parts of chicago "naperville, jr."

[sir_captain]

12. god, generalize much?

it's ironic, considering that you seem to be replying to the implied generalizations of others.

as a native and nearly lifetime new yorker, i can tell you with a fair degree of certitude, that, at least as NYC is concerned, you have no idea what you're talking about, and it shows.

the idea that natives of big cities are necessarily "oilfield workers" or "ghetto thugs" is prejudiced at best. i think you need to take a look in the mirror or learn to write more clearly.

you raise some valid points about transplants--converts to anything tend to be the most strident, but this is not exactly a brilliantly original thesis.

anyone who looks down on you cause you don't like sushi or thai food is a douche bag anyway, so who cares?

[datasuspect]

13. yes, i generalize all the time

all the time.

i'm off to the strawman farms.

hey, here's a shiny quarter, call someone who gives a fuck.

[sir_captain]

14. ooh, we've got outselves a tough guy

i guess you'd be a ghetto thug. i better clutch my courier bag and cross the street. :eyes:

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sir_captain]

16. i could use a shower

but i'm not very good at drawing

[grace0418]

17. Good grief: "don't be too quick to cut down others" is right in the OP. And yet

the assumptions being made about "yups" and "poorly educated state university types" in big cities seem awfully broad to me.

I don't begrudge anyone their likes and dislikes. I *do* have a problem with people who disparage anything new or different without having ever tried it. And there are plenty of people who make faces about cuisine especially (but not exclusively) without ever even trying one bite. Or, if the thought of even trying one bite makes you sick, at least acknowledge that to someone else it might be wonderful without having to dismiss it as fussy, pretentious crap. I don't like seafood, so sushi is not my thing (unless it's vegetarian) but I fully accept and understand how delicious it is to my husband and friends who enjoy it. And I tried it many times (as have I tried seafood of many varieties) before deciding I didn't like it.

I also have a problem with people who do things because that's the way they've been done for X years, and conversely resist anything with which they are unfamiliar. To me that's stubborn and close-minded, not to mention intellectually lazy.

I may not be your typical yuppy, and I may not be a fan of the people who enjoy getting wasted at John Barleycorns every weekend, but I think that broad judgments are broad judgments. None are productive.

[skygazer]

19. Just a comment on the "doing things the way they've been done

for X years.." thing.

I agree to a point but I also think people are often too quick to go with the newest thing. One of the things I love about my home state is that it's full of dirt roads, covered bridges and old barns. The reason for this is because of a sensible Yankee trait of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

While people in other areas went mad replacing all their covered bridges with newfangled steel or concrete (many of which have been replaced several times), we quietly kept our wooden bridges repaired and saved some money. Now people come from all over the world to look at them.

Our dirt roads may seem quaint and foolish, but they actually make a lot of sense. It's far less expensive to run a grader over it and smooth it out than it is to maintain pavement. Etc.

Certainly, there's much to be said for "progress." But there are plenty of occasions where people do things the way they've always done them not because they're stubborn, close-minded or "intellectually lazy" but because it makes good sense.

[grace0418]

28. I guess what I was trying to say was that people who *automatically* do everything

because "that's the way it's always been done" without ever considering anything else are the lazy ones. Of course many times the "new" way is wrong and the old way is right. But never considering the possibilities of progress is what gets us in trouble, whether or not we act on it.

Sorry, I realize that wasn't clear. Thank you for pointing that out. I agree.

:hi:

[mark414]

20. you mean those kids who get their personalities out of a book?

and the ones who will refer to good, solid city neighborhoods as "the ghetto" just because it's not all white people? no, it's called the city you fucking moron.

this post nailed it:

Which believes it is living in urban poverty but in actuality is supported by many social and financial structures that keep it wholly away from real urban poverty. And yes, the condescension and pretensions of knowledge are both insufferable.

i know exactly what you're talking about and they are indeed insufferable.

i grew up in a little farm town full of good honest and damn hard-working people, though i live in the city now. i have been through enough at both ends to survive quite well in any setting though this post brings to mind a (thankfully former) friend of mine, who moved from our dumpy little smells like cow shit all the time town to minneapolis and all of a sudden became "cultured" (as if life outside of the campus/hipster neighborhood bubble is somehow devoid of culture...which it is not, obviously - it's just different, and a hell of a lot more genuine).

his folks are two of the best people i've ever met, his dad especially - a grizzly hulk of a biker who's spent 30 years swilling cheap beer and hunting deer when he's not busting his ass in all of the various factories he's worked at. a little bit of your stereotypical blue collar country dude, so in other words, good fuckin people.

this asshole son of his has the gall to come home and criticize his PARENTS, the people who raised him, for being "uncultured," for drinking shitty beer and being, in his eyes apparently, too low class to be respectable.

i'm ranting and rambling i think a little too much right now and getting a little too specific but i think you get the point. i grew up mostly middle class (it got more comfortable the older i got) but i still fucking get it, and sometimes i just want to slap the shit out of these kids - because they think they know. they don't know that they don't know. i know i don't know shit.

you are NOT a philosopher just because you read one book by kafka (and you probably didn't understand it either) or took a couple of intro classes, and you are not different just because you spend 7 days a week specifically trying to be different - that just makes em exactly like all the rest. and if i hear someone call something ironic one more time i'm bound to stab somebody (i'm kidding...maybe B-))

i know i am painting with a very broad brush here, and of course i always judge people on a case by case basis - but i am just tired of meeting the exact same person 347 times.

okay...i think i'm done now. maybe i just needed to get all that out - mostly i just can't stand smugness and a false sense of superiority...and i see it way too much.

[jpgray]

22. If only self-obsession came with self-doubt, in other words

You'd think they'd at least be familiar with that hoary old Socrates quote about knowing nothing.

[sir_captain]

25. A little self-doubt

would do pretty much everyone a world of good, I think.

Nice point. :toast:

[bridgit]

23. heh-heh, true enough...

:thumbsup:

[greatauntoftriplets]

32. You hanging around with the yuppies from my office???

If a restaurant isn't downtown or in some near-downtown neighborhood, it is beneath their dignity. They'll come out here to the suburbs for their paycheck, but otherwise....pffft.