The only part of Chicago I have seen is the airport.

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing. I'm a die-hard Cubs fan who keeps hearing how wonderful it is to visit the city. I live in a small town in California, but one of these days the family and I are going to make that trip. We recently accompanied our oldest child to NYC where he and his High School wind ensemble played Carnegie Hall. I loved every part of that trip, so I look forward to Chicago next.

-Jimmy

I've been living in Chicago and many of it's south suruberbs for around 17 years now. Chicago is very diverse so it really depends on what part of the city you go to. If you want the actual "city" experiance, I would recommend downtown Chicago (all the pictures you posted are from downtown). In downtown, you can walk down the street with a multi millionare on one side of you and a homeless person on the other side. In Chicago, you can experiance all walks of life.

Most of the people who live in Downtown are either old money or people who managed to make it big. It's very overpriced.

Then, on the outskirts of downtown you have many "parks" which are actually the immediate Chicago suburbs. They are very diverse, it's like walking into differend countries. There's China Town, which, like the name says, is an Asian town. There are towns where everything is in Spanish, or Polish, or Russian, ect. There are poverty striken towns where all the buildings are boarded up. There's gang violance all the time, and people get shot in broad daylight. The worst is when little kids get caught in the cross fires. I hear about that every night on the news. Tragic. I used to live in some of those neighborhoods but they get worse and worse and now I'm too afraid to even drive passed them.

Then, about 20 miles north, or 40 miles south of the downtown area, you have the actual subburbs. Those are very diverse too but for the most part they are either middle class or upper middle class. Some neighborhoods are very rich and the houses are spectacular, some are just your typical suburban America.

Then, about 200 miles south of downtown (now we're leaving Chicago but are still in IL) you have farm towns and farm land. This is where you will find some nature and greenery.