According to the Saipan Tribune's Jaime Vergara, us living in Chicago should feel blessed...wait, that may be to religious of a word for him.  His article, America by Rails Part 6: Millennium Chicago, which is part of a series, touts how Chicago is not as bad as people say.

Mr. Vergara tries to make a parallel about people talking about the dirty Chicago politics not being all that bad because of the fact that he was able to see the glory of Mayor Daley's downtown.  In his Chicago Utopia downtown is all that exists. 



Being a native of Chicago I am biased in thinking this is the best city in the world with the best skyline.  However, that does not mean I am ignorant or unwilling to hear about the ills of the city any more than someone with the same pride has of NYC and the bad areas of Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn. 

What Mr. Vergara likes to profess and correlate to a political ideology is greatly undermined if you look at the environs of Chicago.  It's unfortunate that he decided to do a fluff piece about how Democrats have created a great city without visiting (as far as I know) or even mentioning the ongoing violence in Uptown, corner drug dealing in parts of West Town/Humboldt Park/Logan Square, poverty and dog fighting day-care's in Maywood, and major crime and gang activity in parts of Hyde Park (President Obama's home neighborhood) and farther south side under appreciated neighborhoods.  

The irony is that the Democrat's running Cook County and the city of Chicago are able to still procure votes from these areas that are not being enriched.  I love my city and have faith in it and its future.  I'm not a Daley-Hater, but to see a tourist like Mr. Vergara claim everything is perfect and the "Chicago Way" works quite well is outlandish since he does not reside here.  He is free to make a snap observation, but it should be challenged by those of us that face the day-to-day living in Chicago.