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Stressed Out In Chicago
By Jasmin Mitchell
Recently Forbes ranked my hometown, Chicago, as America's most stressful city. Forbes' lists rising unemployment rates (7.3%), expensive gas, poor air quality, and high population as the reasons for ranking Chicago number one. However, our Mayor, Richard Daley finds the ranking laughable. Daley feels that all the of crazy financial market issues have made New York just as stressed. Still New York ranks No. 2 and then Detroit. Los Angeles and San Francisco rank fourth and fifth. Now, I have lived in Chicago of my life and I still do. I have seen a tremendous change and growth In Chicago over the last 5 or 6 years. And while change and growth are good and natural, I believe that Chicago had changed too much, grown too much, and all too fast. Now everyone is having hard time keeping up. There is so much construction everywhere right now. Road construction that usually lasts for years and years on expressways, major streets, and side streets. And buildings are going up left and right especially in the downtown area. I have never seen so much scaffolding and closed sidewalks in my life. Our downtown area can be an extremely stressful place to be especially around the shops. The sidewalks are combination side-by-side walking, American Girl, Wicked, and Macy's (formerly Marshall Fields and that's a whole different story) bag carrying tourists, mixed with stressed out, speed walking, underpaid, overworked people , trying to get to work,lunch, home, or school. There are also the unfortunates such as the homeless, mentally disturbed, the alcohol and drug addicted which can be all in the same. Then there is our public transit system (CTA) which usually carry some or all of the people aforementioned and can be a high stress factor for many. First of all there are the fare increases that seem to rise every couple years. Then there is the service which seems to decrease in quality every couple of years. There are just moments when I want to scream because the train is moving at a snail's pace. I get on the train plenty early to get to work on time, however, I get to work just in time or late. It's almost like a bad joke and no one is laughing. I don't want to even get started on the crowding especially when there is a Cubs, Bears, or Sox game. I could go on and on about the CTA but I'm getting stressed out just thinkin about it. There are other stress factors that I could go on and on about such as high taxes (10.25%), high crime, politicians, school funding, housing,homelessness. It's all just too much to wrap one brain around. I guess I just feel that Chicago needs to slow down a little bit and focus on the people living in the city instead of bringing so many visitors to the city. Finally, some might say that a little stress is good for you, and others might say there is always someone who has it worse than you. Think about the people in other countries who don't have basic needs and have to worry about civil war and bombings. These people would love to be in a so-called stressed city and take advantage of all of it's opportunities. And In the grand scheme of things I do considered myself blessed and grateful, but that is not always easy to remember in stressful situations. Maybe I'll start counting my blessings on the train when that drunken guy cusses me for not giving him any change. That should help-and then I'll be on my way to wearing a "too blessed to be stressed" button.
This intel first appeared on: http://hubpages.com/hub/Stressed-Out-In-Chicago
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