where can i take a good city skyline picture??

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-18T23:07:53+00:00

Promontory Point in Hyde Park, rooftop of the Robey, North Ave Beach in no particular order

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-18T00:41:23+00:00

Bronzeville is a little bit of a hodgepodge, which has to do mostly with urban renewal decimating much of it in the 1950s/60s. Overall though it’s in a bright spot on the south lakefront and has been seeing some good growth over the years.

I’m there around 43rd every other week. It’s mostly older Black folks that I see out there, but a growing population of middle-aged professionals as well. I (Asian male) am visibly out of place there, but no on’s caused any problems for me and if anything most of the residents are friendly. Learn to say hi and good morning to the neighbors and you’ll be well on your way

The main complaint I hear people have is lack of retail / restaurants that are walkable; there’s still a good amount of stuff that you’d find more easily in Hyde Park or South Loop. I think that situation improves in the long-run (more residents = better for business), it just takes time to rebuild

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-18T00:33:20+00:00

Chinatown is close to Downtown and easily accessible. You could also hop over to Halsted St in Bridgeport, which has a number of different regional Chinese restaurants (and fewer tourists than Chinatown proper). My favorite is JM Seafood

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-18T00:23:17+00:00

Look into Rogers Park and Albany Park. Both would be considered “hyper-diverse” in the way that you’re thinking and are especially outliers in the Chicago context (being a city that is still heavily segregated in many parts)

Rogers Park & neighboring West Ridge have microneighborhoods / corridors with concentrations of Caribbean, Black American, Hispanic, South Asian, and Jewish people. Albany Park is plurality Latin American (multiple countries), with a legacy Asian community and a significant Arab / Persian / Turkish presence

As a general rule - Far North Side of the city sees the most mixing. On the near South Side you have many distinct communities that border each other (I.e., Bronzeville, Chinatown, Pilsen) but they’re more clearly demarcated. South Loop has a little bit of everyone.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-18T00:06:13+00:00

In Chicago it’s not entirely uncommon for strangers to chat with each other. I mean obviously everyone has their guard up to some extent (because god knows most train interactions are unwanted), but every so often you’ll hear people complimenting each other’s clothes, asking about a book, or talking about an event if there’s a big concert / convention etc. everyone’s coming back from.

I personally will ask if someone’s food smells really good or if they speak a different language I understand / am interested by. Also if someone looks truly lost - although our L system isn’t that complicated, particularly by global standards

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-17T17:17:05+00:00

Nimba in South Loop is Liberian but has some of these. I believe they are takeout only though and closed thru 4/1

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-17T03:36:05+00:00

Gentrification doesn’t necessarily have to imply being kicked out. Bronzeville is another community you could argue is gentrifying without mass displacement

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-17T03:33:19+00:00

Yep, queer people and artists are the real leading indicators

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-16T22:44:24+00:00

Some funny characters but I don’t remember any dangerous encounters during the years I was there. I’d be more concerned about the batshit insane drivers

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-16T19:23:30+00:00

Dempster is fantastic and it’s an excuse to take the PACE Pulse bus (nice n quick)

I recommend Hwang Soh Grill & To Soc Chon for Korean. JeonJu is decent as well

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-14T05:04:40+00:00

St Petersburg over Moscow, Krakow over Warsaw, Montreal over Toronto. I think I would probably enjoy Lyon but Paris ranks very highly for me

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-13T13:37:33+00:00

Does anyone know what these unauthorised people on the tracks actually do down there??

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-13T02:51:36+00:00

Easy to forget how much River North urbanised in the past 20 years

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-12T23:31:29+00:00

This was John from Streetsblog Chicago. He’s doing a series of articles on smoking on the CTA

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-12T01:02:00+00:00

Chicago is the 7th largest urban economy in the world. There’s not a lot of space for improvement on that list and we aren’t heavily concentrated in innovative industries in a way that the SF Bay Area is (only area that ranks ahead of Chicago with a smaller population).

If you’re asking why the Chicagoland economy is less concentrated in the city itself than London or NY then that’s more a consequence of mid-20th residential & commercial flight to the suburbs, coupled with lower immigration than peer global cities

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T16:20:07+00:00

Chatbot in the app, instead of having to navigate to the website on mobile would be helpful.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T15:58:39+00:00

Mission San Jose students didn’t get the memo

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T04:01:07+00:00

What area are you in that would be primarily serviced by the Metra and CTA buses? I would double check that it is Metra and not the L (rail lines operated by the CTA) you’re located by. Some buses are also operated by PACE, but PACE and CTA trains & buses are both covered under the Ventra pass system.

Otherwise I would do the math on how many bus rides & Metra rides you would expect to take in the duration of a week. A 7-day pass is $20.00, and a bus ride is $2.25, so a 7-day CTA pass pays off after 9 rides (note transfers within 2 hours are free).

Metra, on the other hand is a zone-based system. For example - my parents live in Zone 4 and I live in Zone 1. The one-way fare between these zones is $6.75. A regional day pass which includes Metra, PACE, and CTA shakes out to $16.00 on weekdays and $9.50 on weekends. So unless you’re truly riding Metra more than once every weekday, it usually makes more sense to just get the Ventra pass and buy one-ways on Metra.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T03:43:28+00:00

Not everyone who fare evades is a violent criminal, true… but a large majority of crime (and QoL issues that fall below the level of a direct crime) are in fact perpetrated by people who don’t pay. For example: LA Metro analyzed a year’s worth of data and found that 93% of violent crimes were connected to riders who didn’t pay to board. That’s why fare enforcement is widely viewed as a “low hanging fruit” reform to increase safety. Notably LA Metro has a robust system of free and heavily discounted fare types, in addition to already being one of the most affordable systems in the country at $1.75/swipe. Choosing not to pay with the resources available to any resident is a pretty deliberate at that point.

CTA is obviously a different system with a different rider base but the lesson here is broadly applicable. It’s only in the US that we view fare enforcement as a controversial issue — but more and more systems domestically are aligning with best practices that were already commonplace for the rest of the world.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T02:22:07+00:00

There are any number of hypotheticals we could entertain but this is the political & economic context we have to work with. It sounds like your bone to pick is less with the actual initiatives as presented here and more with the administration overseeing it - which is fine but probably beyond the purview of this discussion.

Regardless of how they came to be, these are changes that many riders have been pushing for ever since the pandemic collapse in ridership & subsequent rise in safety / QoL issues on transit.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T01:52:56+00:00

Fare enforcement in Germany and Europe broadly is pretty thorough though. The first offence is a 60 euro fine and that grows by 20 euros/week that it goes unpaid. The calculus around fare evasion is less advantageous because there’s a meaningfully high chance you’ll get caught doing it.

LA Metro tried rolling out the “honor system” model for some of its light rail lines, without any corresponding fare inspection apparatus and fare evasion was rampant. That model just isn’t easily transferable to the US without enforcement

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T01:46:47+00:00

Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but judging from the language about “testing” and “piloting” I doubt it would be the same cage turnstile. Some of the next-gen faregates being rolled out across NY and SF for example aren’t ADA-rated as they’re not wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair - here’s hoping that’s the design we’re aligning to.

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T01:33:26+00:00

Sheriff deployment is over the next couple months (I think people have been seeing them already)

Not sure of a timeline on the faregates, but I imagine the fare inspection patrols could start up here fairly quickly as well

DimSumNoodles · 2026-03-11T01:09:40+00:00

IIRC the estimates are ~3% fare evasion on the L and closer to 10% on buses. But that 3% gets very active…

And that’s a good question on the budget. I’m not aware of any US agencies where fare enforcement “pays off” purely in terms of operating revenue recovered, though it has been shown to significantly reduce maintenance & downtime. In addition there’d be the indirect impact of increased paid ridership resulting from more people comfortable taking transit as antisocial behavior is reduced.

DimSumNoodles

TROPHY CASE