The World Thinks Chicago Is a World City, So Why Don't Most Chicagoans Think So, Too?

I posted this in response to edsg's thread about supposedly flaming a NYC-Chicago rivalry, but on second glance I feel it's a legitimate question. For starters, we all know my history: lifelong New Yorker who moved to Chicago two years ago after 33 years in NYC. So here's the thing: Personally I think New York City and Chicago both stand favorable comparison against each other, neither being perfect and each having advantages over the other (you know the drill: you can order a pizza at 3 am in New York, you can take the L to the airport in Chicago, yada yada ad infinitum). What kills me is this. New Yorkers know they have a universally recognized good thing and feel totally secure about it. Chicagoans also know they have a universally recognized good thing. But they feel like they have to justify it all the time. Besides the fact that due to their self-assuredness about their city New Yorkers won't be listening to see if boasts, brags, or legitimate rationalizations are emerging from Chicago (or from anywhere else, for that matter), I think this propensity for Chicagoans to constantly and often unwittingly enter into, for want of a better term, pissing contests about the city makes the city look to outsiders like it really is in some way less of a real city than New York. If I had a nickel for every time one of my Chicago friends started a sentence with, "Ok, so it's not New York, but..." I would be able to do early retirement in Portugal by now. I just don't get why, given the level of pride and swagger in Chicago about Chicago--and most of it realisitically grounded--there still exists this urge in the municipal psyche to hold itself up to any other World City standard but its own. Not for nothing, but the real mark of a World City is that you get to set your own standard. I don't know why Chicagoans are afraid of doing that, they have every right and it's the only thing that makes the city NOT feel like a World City. Londoners get it, Parisians get it, Lisboetas get it, New Yorkers get it, Montrealers get it, Paulistas get it, Angelinos get it, so why don't Chicagoans get it? Midwestern politesse? Lack of experience of other World Cities? The old NYC-Chicago rivalry being too ingrained in the group subconscious? The horror of the municipally declining bad old days being too close in memory? The lack of a real political consciousness in the city? The feeling that Daley gets it, so that's good enough? The lack of good day-tripping options??? Perhaps even (God forbid) the notion that many Chicagoans really do feel like New York City is in some way the better city? If you're reading this and you're from Chicago, raise your hand if you've ever boasted about Chicago. Now keep your hand raised if you've ever boasted about Chicago while not at the same time comparing it to New York. I just heard a loud thud as most of your hands returned to your desktops. You're the people whose responses are key.>