Lately, I've been hunting for novels and books that address more of a sense of "place" just related to Chicago as a city? I have a short list of books I think start to make use of Chicago as a "place?" I will have to read those books and see if my preconceptions match up?
I bring up this sense of ambiguity because there really is a tremendous amount of activity that goes on in Chicago and regionally, but the Midwest still seems to remain a "backwater" in American intellectual life? It seems to me that people start here in various ways but rarely do they stay in Chicago? I don't know how accurate that supposition is?
What I'm trying to articulate is the strange sort of dissonance in the "language of place" when it comes to Chicago? For example, it is very easy to just say to someone, in a first meeting, if they aren't from Chicago, "well, I live in Chicago, or I am from Chicago" and that won't really be questioned? But if you try saying something that simplistic to an actual Chicago native, immediately "Well, where did you grow up? Suburbs, Uptown, Wicker Park.. So where did you go to High School?"
There is this very detailled exchange that happens and the "suburbs" doesn't "count" to the Chicago native. New York City and L.A. just don't have the same sort of very granular identification of origin and "place" that Chicago does? Which is interesting, because traditionally, the roll of large American cities involves the re-creation and reinvention of personal identity and community? Or, I'm generalizing but trying to explain some of what I have observed?
Partly, Chicago and the surrounding sprawl are large enough but also contained enough that a sort of interesting anthropological and infrastructure study of economics and social life isn't as murderously complex as it would be in the two or three largest American cities?
Stay tuned, I want to think about this more.
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