What downtown means

By On November 15, 2011 · 17 Comments

Array

Not the guy from the story. 

I was “downtown” photographing situations that make it hard to walk (hard to be a pedestrian) on Sunday, November 13, 2011. While waiting for the light at LaSalle and Adams, a man wearing a Bears jersey in the front passenger seat of a taxicab asked me if I had pizza in my Yuba Mundo’s Go-Getter bag.

“No”, I said, adding, “It has my backpack in there”.

“It’s a very large bag”, he replied.

Realizing that he was sober and that we could hold a conversation, I explained, “It holds a lot of groceries”.

“Oh, you live downtown”, he ascertained.

Not quite. “I live a few miles outside of downtown”.

The light turned green and the driver moved on, but the guy left me with, “Have a nice day”. I said, “You, too”.

After I got home and was looking through my photos and recounted this story, I  realized that to him, “downtown” meant the entire City of Chicago. To me, downtown meant the Loop community area and some surrounding blocks. I might define “downtown” as a place bounded by Kennedy, Division, Lake Michigan, and Roosevelt. But to this suburban football fan, downtown is that big place that one has to travel a ways to get to. I remembered that I had the same understanding of downtown when I lived in Batavia, Illinois, a suburb 40 miles west of Chicago. You can access it by driving on I-290 and I-88, or by taking the Metra UP-West line to Geneva.

There’s at least one other assumption I can make from this conversation: If I shop for and carry groceries on a bicycle, I must live in Chicago; people in the suburbs are never seen shopping for and carrying groceries on a bicycle.

Array

Another photo from my photo mission on Sunday. It’s Roosevelt University’s vertical campus building on Wabash and Van Buren. 

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  • Occupymylove

    Downtown goes to Division now?  Half of Goose Island is downtown?

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      I changed my mind, downtown looks like this to me: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=214877257961536563168.0004a9c4a4681e17b0732&msa=0 (but Kennedy instead of Halsted for the portions south of Kinzie). 

  • John Wirtz

    Is Evanston a suburb?  I (and others) often shop for and carry groceries by bike there.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      For the purpose of this “thought exercise”, yes. If someone lives in Aurora and meets you and before you tell them you live in Evanston you tell them you buy groceries on your bike, they’d guess you live in Chicago. 

      But we could have a discussion about what it means to be a suburb. There could be strict definitions based on its geography (suburbs are all localities that are not the biggest city they surround). Or urban and suburban are just conditions of a locality, on a spectrum, with “very urban” on one end and “very rural” on the other. 

  • http://twitter.com/banoonoo Anna Schibrowsky

    This is so true! I occasionally get to witness focus groups, where moderators and brand managers fly in from New York or LA or London or Berlin to ask Chicago area residents about their shopping habits. One man from Lake Forest or thereabouts told the moderator, “I come downtown for Cubs games at least once a month.” Asked if he drove or took the train, he said “I drive all the way in, all the way into downtown.” I chuckled to myself and forgot about it. Then, much later, the moderator said to me, “Traffic will probably be busy around here tomorrow afternoon, for the Cubs game.” I explained, “The Cubs play over 4 miles away, so I doubt it will really affect downtown traffic on Michigan Avenue.”

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      That seems like an interesting activity, to witness focus groups. You probably find yourself observing people who are very similar to you, but also people that you feel are completely opposite you. 

      And speaking of Cubs traffic, you’re probably right about it not affecting Michigan Avenue, but it oddly affects traffic around Union and Ogilvie stations. If only there was an easy way for the fans to go from Metra to CTA to Wrigley Field without having to take cabs. 

  • http://jmd1125.blogspot.com Jennifer

    I’ve never heard of anyone refer to the entire city that way, but I think anything with a large tourist/business draw is considered to be “downtown.” So, maybe consider an arc from McCormick Place, through the United Center, up to the end of the Magnificent Mile. 

    Or alternatively, you must live downtown, because otherwise you’d have a car that you’d use to run errands on the weekends. It’s one of those things that “everyone” knows that “everyone” does, even if they walk/bike/ride CTA to work.However, I think the gentleman from Lake Forest must suffer from extreme ignorance of geography. I mean, I thought it’s whole appeal to people who don’t live in the city is that it’s in a “neighborhood.”

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      Have you ever lived in a suburb 30 or more miles away from “downtown Chicago”?

      Here’s another thing we meant when I lived in the suburbs: If we wanted to go “downtown”, it was assumed we’d take the Metra because we didn’t want to deal with finding and paying for parking “downtown”.

      • http://jmd1125.blogspot.com Jennifer

        Well, not since I was 18.

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