Chicago, also known as The Second City, is the third largest city in the United States. One of the oldest American cities, it is often viewed as a mini New York City.

The NYC comparison is fair in some respects. Like NYC, Chicago is large and dense, is famous for its hot dogs and pizza, and has some pretty cold weather. However, in all of these areas, there are significant differences from New York.

First, while Chicago is large and dense, it is nowhere near Manhattan. There’s plenty of ’space’ even in areas like Lincoln Park. In Manhattan, it’s pretty much impossible to have a car, whereas having a car is fairly important in many parts of Chicago, unless your lifestyle is well suited for public transportation.

Like NYC, Chicago is famous for pizza and hot dogs, but they’re a much different style. Chicago’s pizza is deep dish, whereas New York’s is thin crust. In New York, you get your hot dog with saurkraut and mustard. Chicago has a distinct ‘Chicago-style’ hot dog, which is generally mustard, relish, pickle, tomato, and onions.

Finally, if you think New York City is cold, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve lived in Chicago. The winters are just flat-out miserable.

While Chicago’s monorail system, known as The El (short for elevated), is pretty solid, many people still find themselves needing a car. First of all, The El’s system basically connects various parts of Chicago with downtown. So if you are going from a northern suburb to a western suburb, you are pretty much out of luck or going way out of your way if you are using the el. If you live near an El stop near to the inner city and work near downtown, then you can get by without having a car, but if you live int he suburbs or need to travel around to various parts of Chicago, you’ll need a car.

There is so much to do and see in Chicago that it’s pretty much pointless to include it in this article. Long story short though, the pros of Chicago is that it is similar to New York in terms of urban living, though it’s not as intense and dense as Manhattan. The weather of Chicago should not be discounted though. After living there myself, I plan on never living there long-term again. One more Chicago winter will break my soul.