I got more and more angry and finally told them that I moved here from Chicago, and I did not come here to go on welfare or sell drugs.
While they stared sheepishly at their toes, I told them that yes, there were some very tough characters who had moved here from Chicago.
But I told them that I knew and had talked with a lot of people from Chicago, and that the reason most Chicagoans moved here was to get a better quality of life.
Minneapolis certainly has its share of problems. But there is nothing that compares to the worst bombed-out neighborhoods in Chicago. If you ride a southside El, you will go past blocks that may have only one or two two-flats left standing, and the entire rest of the block is nothing but rubble and broken glass and trash. Every other building on the block has been destroyed, through fire and condemnation and neglect. In Chicago some landlords were setting fire to their own properties to collect the insurance.
You had streets that were literally 100% white on one side and 100% black on the other side. The Chicago public school system was a total failure. Gangs had a hammerlock on many of the housing projects and neighborhoods. I lived for three years in one of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods, South Austin on the west side. On my block just during my three years there, someone was murdered and a house was burned to the ground.
For all the problems here, it cannot compare with the degree of hopelessness, fear and entrapment that people feel in Chicago's worst neighborhoods.
And this is the number one reason why Chicagoans come here. Because compared to what they left behind, Minneapolis and Minnesota offers a much higher quality of life. And I find that when I talk with people from Chicago, in general they tend to be much more optimistic about conditions here , because they are comparing it to what they had in Chicago, not to an idyllic view of what Minnesota may have been like 30 years ago.
As for me, I cannot even claim that my reasons were that high-minded. I came here for a job. I had the very vaguest notions that Minnesota was a nice state, but I really knew nothing about it, and had to get a dictionary to learn words like DFL and lutefisk and bar and hotdish.
I will say that I love Minnesota, and am very grateful that I landed here. In Minneapolis, I particularly like how you can find lakes, river bluffs, streams and wildlife right here in the city. Though I would rather drink transmission fluid than eat lutefisk, I have developed a taste for pickle herring.
I would never consider moving back to Chicago. But there are three things I miss about Chicago:
1) The rock'm-sock'm politics. I remember one city council meeting where the aldermen - and yes, even the women are aldermen - were throwing their shoes at each other, and another where mayor Harold Washington tried to drag Fast Eddie Vrdolyak out into the alley to pound the living daylights out of him.
2) The ethnic restaurants. You could spin the globe and stick your finger down, and find a restaurant from the country your finger landed in. The Twin Cities has gotten much better, but still cannot hold a candle to Chicago. By the way, for those pining away for Chicago-style junk food, try Joey D's at 31st Ave. and 42nd St.
3) The ethnic neighborhoods. I had a map of the ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago, and after work at the Chicago Historical Society I would take the bus and visit the different neighborhoods. You could find a Ukrainian neighborhood, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Yugoslav, Greek, Korean, Lithuanian, East Indian, Polish, Irish and on and on. You would find ethnic churches, restaurants, businesses, sometimes statues and museums. And if you listened, you would hear the words of many foreign lands.
Yet with this quaintness came a parochialism and a hostility towards outsiders that, thank God, has never taken root in remotely the same degree here.
Jay Clark Cooper
P.S. I'm sorry it took so long to respond. I have such an avalanche of emails piled up that it has taken me this long to stumble upon this thread
Eric Mitchell wrote:
--- gemgram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I believe a few of our drug and gang problems are home
grown, some came from L.A., some bad ones from
Detroit, some from K.C, and some from other U.S.
Cities. But yes, indeed, a whole lot of the gang and
drug problems have come to Minneapolis from Chicago...
The "Gang Strike Force" is a good resource if you have
questions. Vice Lords, Disciples, Bloods originating
in Chicago, Crips from LA, Detroit Boys from---well
you get the idea.
----------------------------------------
--- Barbara Lickness <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
When Whittier had the Fair Oaks Motel Hell in our neighborhood, drug dealers would come here from
Chicago, stay in the hotel, sell a bunch of drugs and
then go back to Chitown.
-----------------------------------------
Well, first I have to correct Jim. Bloods are from LA.
Started almost 3 decades ago by a former Chicago gang
member.
Anyway, Chicago happen to also export many of
Minnesota's Black public servants (and John Marty
too-he's not black), business leaders, judges,
attorneys and everyday professionals. These people add
to the high quality of life enjoyed here in the
city/state and should be acknowledged when attacking
Chicago as the main exporter of Minneapolis/Minnesota
problems(I hear the same thing in St Paul and Duluth).
I, too, hail from the Windy City and like to think that I contribute in a positive manner (most of the time) to the quality of life in this state.
Ease off.
Eric Mitchell St Paul
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