NO GARBAGE ON THE SIDEWALKS.

Chicago is a beautiful city. Chicago has a great skyline, beautiful lakefront, beautiful parks, award winning architecture. AND, IT IS CLEAN.

Chicago is probably the cleanest big city in the U.S. There is no trash laying in the streets. Plus, we have tons of parks, unlike just one big park in N.Y.
And Chicago is one, real city. N.Y. is five boroughs.

Well, like the others, the no-garbage-on-the-sidewalk thing is a big plus for Chicago. In NYC the garbage cans are right in front of the apartment buildings. And since garbage pickup is like once a week or something, the first thing you see almost every morning isa big pile of garbage in front of your door. No wonder New Yorkers are so pissed off all the time...

I also like the fact that Chicago is not as spread out as NYC. Getting from one borough to another can be a pain in the a**. You can get from one end of Chicago to the other on ONE elevated train for $2! And the trains run later here. When I was in NYC, trains in Manhattan stopped running at about midnight. I had to walk back to my hotel late one night because I didn't know the train had stopped running. (I was about to cut across through Central Park because it was shorter, but I came to my senses and walked the long way around.)

NYC isn't all bad. Despite what I said, the people there aren't all rude (one guy stopped me from standing at a street corner waiting to cross the street... he pointed up and showed me I was standing right under a telephone wire with about 13 pigeons resting on it, possibly digesting a big meal, if you catch my drift. And the cops were nice).

Bottom line, they're both different cities and both have their good points,. But personaly, I prefer Chicago.