I moved to Chicago from Los Angeles for a job 23 years ago. I was skeptical about moving to a frigid, rust belt city with a waning economy, raucous politics, declining population, and a complicated socio-economic structure that was hostile to newcomers. But thanks to some great people, fantastic culture, relative affordability, and an unexpected vitality, I decided to make Chicago my adopted home town.
I arrived here two years after Harold Washington became the first African-American mayor of one of the most segregated cities in the United States. It was a year after Michael Jordan turned a perennial NBA loser into a budding dynasty. It was a few months after Oprah Winfrey arrived in town. And it was two years after another newcomer, Barack Obama, decided to make Chicago his home.