Chicagoans ♥ Chicago

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jul 29, 2008 7:00PM

It was just over a month ago that we posed the question: Is this Chicago's moment in the Sun? It led to the conclusion that we don't need anyone to tell us how great our city is, despite its drawbacks, because we love it just the same. And now we have proof. Paris-based environmental-services firm Veolia Environnement SA reports that Chicagoans love their city more than residents in 13 other major international cities (including New York City, Paris, and Tokyo) love theirs. The company surveyed around 600 people in all 14 cities to gather their rankings. Chicago's "very satisfied" response rate was first at 49 percent, followed by Sydney (44 percent), New York (41 percent), Berlin (38 percent), and L.A. and Paris (35 percent) rounding out the top five.

While we here at Chicagoist happily join in the lovefest (why else do we write about this great city of ours?), we remain a tad skeptical of this particular survey: 600 people seems to be a relatively small sample size for the cities involved in the survey. By including cities like Tokyo, which tops eight digits population-wise, something tells us the numbers may be a bit skewed. Even Paris, the smallest city we mentioned in terms of population, tops two million people. Still, this qualm won't keep us from adding this title to our trophy case.

Perhaps more noteworthy is a recent MasterCard study which "used various data and some polling to analyze 100 factors contributing to a city's stature," and placed the city fifth in terms of being a "global economic center" and 26th in livability. "Chicago is a far more global city than it thinks itself," according to Saskia Sassen, a professor of sociology at Columbia University. Woot! Bring on the Olympics!

Photo by efroten