Downtown Chicago: nation's best CBD??

You may notice that I choose to ask some questions that may be loaded, or at least contraversial on this board. That's because I am interested in a Chicago perspective and not a _____ vs. _______ issue. In that spirit, I ask the following: Is downtown Chicago arguably the nation's greatest central business district, perhaps even significantly so? I ask this question with a belief there is only one rival, New York, and thus partially base my argument on the following factors in the Big Apple: 1. Downtown Manhattan 2. Midtown Manhattan 3. the unusual nature of Manhattan First, downtown and midtown: New York has two CBD's, miles apart, never to be linked. This, as opposed to Chicago where the Loop and the Magnificent Mile were close enough to become part of a single CBD, along with neighboring sections of the city. Downtown Manhattan lost much of its power (short of financial) to Midtown years ago. It does, however, retain the historical base of the city, making it akin to Chicago's Loop. Midtown would appear to be the real competition for Chicago, but its transformation into a CBD occurred in a well established city in the early 20th century. Its sheer growth has overwhelmed its part of Manhattan, and much of that growth has been faceless, wall-to-wall buildings. So downtown has the tradition and Midtown is the corporate poster child and life style king. Chicago's CBD contains both environments. Manhattan grew differently than Chicago. While Manhattan is incredibly central to the greater New York City community, Manhattan itself is not centralized; it's linear. Manhattan is able to accomplish what no urban setting in the US can accomplish: a dispersion of cultural attractions away from its CBD's. Thus museums (i.e. Met, Guggenheim, etc.) can be located away from either downtown or midtown. In Chicago, a city built on concentric cores, the CBD is the center and offfers most of the city's great cultural institutions. Chicago's CBD has a much healthier connection to water than does NYC's prime CBD, Midtown, where only the not-too-connected section by the UN links the district to the East River. In Chicago, both river and lake are well integrated into downtown. I don't know about others, but to me, downtown Chicago works like no other CBD in the nation.>