View source for Chicago

[[File:Chicago Sears Tower.jpg|thumb|The [[w:Willis Tower|Willis Tower]] (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in Chicago, at one time the tallest building in the world for nearly 25 years]]
[[File:Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, Estados Unidos, 2012-10-20, DD 03.jpg|thumb|They have the time. The time or their life; I saw a man. He danced with his wife. In Chicago, my home town. ~ [[Fred Fisher]]]]
[[File:DowntownChicagoILatNight.jpg|thumb|I came to discover that Chicago is that most American of American cities. ~ [[Barack Obama]]]]
:'''''See also, [[Chicago (2002 film)]] and [[Chicago (band)]].'''''
[[w:Chicago|'''Chicago''']], officially the '''City of Chicago''', is a [[w:North America|North American]] city located in the U.S. state of [[w:Illinois|Illinois]]. It is the [[w:List of United States cities by population|third most populous]] urban area in the [[United States]], after [[New York City]] and [[w:Los Angeles|Los Angeles]].

Located on the shores of freshwater [[w:Lake Michigan|Lake Michigan]], Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a [[w:Chicago Portage|portage]] between the [[w:Great Lakes|Great Lakes]] and the [[w:Mississippi watershed|Mississippi River watershed]] and grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. After the [[w:Great Chicago Fire|Great Chicago Fire]] of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 [[w:homelessness in the United States|homeless]], the city rebuilt. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the great fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world. Chicago made noted contributions to [[w:urban planning|urban planning]] and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the [[w:Chicago School (architecture)|Chicago School]] of architecture), the development of the [[w:City Beautiful Movement|City Beautiful Movement]], and the steel-framed [[w:skyscraper|skyscraper]].

Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized [[w:futures contract|futures contract]]s, issued by the [[w:Chicago Board of Trade|Chicago Board of Trade]], which today is part of the largest and most diverse [[w:Derivative (finance)|derivatives]] market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in [[w:commodity|commodities]] and financial futures alone. Its municipal government is currently controlled by the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], and its current mayor is [[w:Brandon_Johnson|Brandon Johnson]].

==Quotes==
[[File:Wrigley Field - by Kaczmarczyk.jpg|thumb|Chicago's [[w:Wrigley Field|Wrigley Field]], one of the oldest baseball parks in the U.S.]]
* It's every man for himself in this hired air. / Yet once you've <!--sic: "come"-->come to be <!--sic: "to be part"-->part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.
** [[Nelson Algren]], ''[[Chicago: City on the Make]]'' (1951)

* An October sort of city even in spring.
** [[Nelson Algren]], ''[[Chicago: City on the Make]]'' (1951)

* This is virgin territory out here for whorehouses.
** [[Al Capone]], referring to suburban Chicago, as quoted in ''The Bootleggers and Their Era'' (1961) by Kenneth Alsop

*Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like all other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation. The Illinois Central Railroad Company selected the site upon which the city is built and this consisted of a vast miasmatic swamp far better suited to mosquito culture than for human beings. From the day the site was chosen by (and of course in the interest of all) said railway company, everything that entered into the building of the town and the development of the city was determined purely from profit considerations and without the remotest concern for the health and comfort of the human beings who were to live there, especially those who had to do all the labor and produce all the wealth. 
**[[Eugene Debs]] "What's the matter with Chicago?" in ''The Chicago Socialist'' (October 25, 1902)

* They have the time<br>The time or their life<br>I saw a man<br>He danced with his wife<br>In Chicago, my home town.
** Song "Chicago" (lyrics [[Fred Fisher]])

* Why stay in Chicago; what did the town have to justify its existence? One decent boulevard, one decent suburb to the north, priced for the rich, two universities and a lake. As for the rest, endless miles of depressing, dirty streets. The town was one big stockyard.
** [[Robert A. Heinlein]], ''The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag'' (1942)

* I don't know what hell is but it ain't worse than Chicago.
** The character Clive in [[1923 (TV series)|''1923'']]

* I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago… Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.
** [[Rudyard Kipling]], ''From Sea to Sea - Letters of Travel'' [http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/FromSeaToSea/seatosea_XXXV.html]

* Cities like [[London]], [[New York City|New York]], [[Berlin]], [[Paris]], Chicago, [[Pittsburgh]], [[Detroit]], or [[Glasgow]] are high spots of [[slavery]] in comparison to [[Albania]], [[wikipedia:Bulgaria|Bulgaria]], or even [[Central Africa]]. The [[Wage slavery|slavery of the watch and clock]], the [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]], anthropocentric slavery of material prestige and successful competition (to slave in order to keep up standards), the wage slavery of the [[proletarian]], the school slavery of the children, the conscription slavery of the adolescents, the road slavery, the factory slavery, the barrack slavery, the party slavery, the office slavery, the parlor slavery of manners and conventions — all these slaveries make political "[[freedom]]" appear a bitter joke.
** [[Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn]], ''The Menace of the Herd'' (1943), p. 85

*Chicago's Greektown was adjacent to Hull House, [[Jane Addams]]' famed settlement project, whose activities played an important and beneficial role for many early [[Greeks|Greek]] [[Immigration to the United States|immigrants]]. The special attention Jane Addams gave to Greek immigrants and her espousal of Greek culture did much to buttress the ethnic pride of the sorely tried Greek immigrants of Chicago.
**Peter C. Moskos, ''Greek Americans: Struggle and Success'' (2013)

* I came to discover that Chicago is that most American of American cities, but one where citizens from more than 130 nations inhabit a rich tapestry of distinctive neighborhoods. Each one of those neighborhoods -- from Greektown to the Ukrainian Village; from Devon to Pilsen to Washington Park -- has its own unique character, its own unique history, its songs, its language. But each is also part of our city -- one city -- a city where I finally found a home.
** [[Barack Obama]], [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/president-obama-michelle_n_307637.html ''The Huffington Post'']

* I realized that my gloss as chief economist, head of [[Economics]] and Regional Planning... was part of a sinister system aimed not at outfoxing an unsuspecting customer, but rather at promoting the most subtle and effective form of [[imperialism]] the world has ever known....  The march had begun and it was rapidly encircling the planet. The hoods had discarded their leather jackets, dressed up in business suits, and taken on an air of respectability. [[Man|Men]] and [[women]] were descending from corporate headquarters in [[New York City|New York]], Chicago, [[San Francisco]], [[London]], and [[Tokyo]], streaming across every continent to convince [[Corruption|corrupt]] [[politicians]] to allow their countries to be shackled to the [[Corporatocracy|corporatocracy,]] and to induce desperate people to sell their bodies to sweatshops and assembly lines... a world of smoke and mirrors intended to keep us all shackled to a system that is morally repugnant and ultimately self-destructive.
** [[John Perkins]] in ''[[Confessions of an Economic Hit Man]]'' (2004)p. 160

* Hog Butcher for the World, <br /> Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, <br /> Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; <br /> Stormy, husky, brawling, <br /> City of the Big Shoulders.
** [[Carl Sandburg]], "Chicago" (1916)

*And each time I roam, Chicago is calling me home, Chicago is. Why I just grin like a clown! It's my kind of town!
**[[Frank Sinatra]], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK_CL7sr018 "My Kind of Town"], ''Sinatra '65: The Singer Today'' (1965), Reprise Records

* I tried not to make judgments. These people were doing something important, all of them. They were testing ways whereby people didn’t have to live in Chicago. That was a wonder to me. I had thought Chicago was inevitable, like diarrhea.
** [[John Varley]], ''[[w:The Persistence of Vision (novella)|The Persistence of Vision]]'' in ''[[w:Nebula Winners Fourteen|Nebula Winners Fourteen]],'' p. 4

== See also ==
* [[:Category:Films set in Chicago]]

== External links ==
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*{{Wiktionary-inline|Chicago}}
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