Be True to Thyself

If you are out of town and are from Shaumburg, Naperville, or Winnetka usually you will tell a person, upon meeting them for the first time, that you are from Chicago. However, do you understand the full extent of what living in Chicago entails?
It means your child may have to go to crumbling, poor acheiving public schools. You may have to talk to someone on food stamps. You may have to talk to your kids about gangs, they might be sitting on your porch. You may have to ride the bus to work with someone who drinks their own urine. You will pay some of the highest taxes in the nation. You will have put up with a shady city government, police, etc. and like it.
It would be nice if we could annex some of those suburbs into the city and use some of those extremly rich taxpayers to pay for our public schools, parks, infrastructure, and our problems. Unfortunately, we can't. So, I urge any suburbanite, when out of town, not to use Chicago as a reference point, if you don't really want to take on the extra burdens a Chicagoan has to bear as a citizen of this city of 3.8 million non-suburbanites. When trying to help someone understand where you are from, be proud that you really are from, Morton Grove.

Where do you live?

There is an easy way to tell if someone is a True Chicagoan, just ask them where they live. If they say Logan Square, not a True Chicagoan. If they say Fullerton and California, True Chicagoan. If they say Lincoln Square, not a True Chicagoan. If they say, I live over by the McDonald's on Lincoln and Western, True Chicagoan. If they say, I think the nieghborhood map of Chicago says I live in the Near North Side, not a True Chicagoan, but if they say I live at Division and Halsted, this place sure has changed, but I was born and raised right here, and this is where I'm gunna stay, then that person is a True Chicagoan.