Hi i'm thinking of relocating to chicago from the united kingdom anyone have any advice?

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J C

It's much colder here and it snows significantly.

I think you would like it though. It's not as expensive as London, but it is pricey.

aaron a

you should visit it for about 2 weeks b4 you move here. i live here and i luv it. born and raised here. its nice in the summer and it was a pretty warm winter until about a month ago.we just got about 11inches of snow about a week ago. but the beauty makes up for it.

I live in Chicago and I love it! This winter was pretty brutal but the summers sure make up for it! The city is great, the people are nice, great public transporation, tons of activities year round.
My only advice...bring a warm coat, hat and gloves. You're gonna love it!

1985 & going strong

You have received some very good answers (and some based on more negative experiences, I guess).

Chicago is a wonderful multi-cultral, muti-ethnic city. For the most part, everyone lives happily and peacefully with each other. But there are always exceptions, and this occurs everywhere.

If you are prepared for the winters (dress warmly, and in layers...and get a good coat. Down-filled coats are great for keeping you toasty outside. And a hooded coat or jacket is better than one without) you will be fine. Don't forget good warm gloves or mittens, and good snow boots. Also be aware that winds can get pretty high, although people still go to work on those days. The cold and the wind may take some getting used to.

If you prepare for the summers, then you will have few problems. Hats keep your face cooler than if you went without. If you have no air conditioning in your home, plan to spend time at the public libraries which are official cooling centers for residents who have no way to cool off.

The beaches are packed at those times, but everyone who wants to go, does. The lake is beautiful, and seems to have a personality depending on the weather. It is also cooler by the lake.

There are things to do and places to go in the city all year round. Chicago has numerous theatres, concerts (even concerts, dancing, and movies in the park), museums, and other things to keep a person busy and entertained for hours on end.

There is great shopping in Chicago and in locations near the city and further away. The same can be said for the restaurants. You should be able to find almost any type of cuisine here.

I hope you find your own special niche in Chicago, and feel right at home in a short time.

Hope this helps!

TSC123

I live in Chicago, and have for the past 10 years. I love it here and I will never leave. True, we have snow. True, it is hot in the summer. But so what. Isn't winter supposed to be cold and summer supposed to be hot?

The people here are friendly. Our public transportation system is excellent. We have museums, art galleries and beautiful parks up and down our lake front. There are a menagerie of cultures, traditions and foods all within a few miles.

I spent a month in the UK, and do not understand me, it was wonderful...but it's no Chicago. Like Frank Sinatra once said "It's myyyyy kiiiiiind of tooooooooooowwwwn!"

Fel

In my opinion, you won't like Chicago, because of the climate
difference. In the summer, for example, Chicago is horribly hot
and humid, with no relief until maybe September. Also, it is a
noisy city with no greenery. I live in the U.S. but prefer the U.K.

Dr.Fishie

Having lived in the Chicago area, I can tell you that there are definite pluses and minuses.

Get used to cold, windy winters. It gets a bit soggy in the UK in winter, but the cold is nothing compared to Chicago. The summers are extremely hot. It actually isn't the heat that's the problem though- it's the humidity. Summer in the city can be miserable if you're used to cooler climates.

Chicago has great people, a decent public transportation system (especially for a US city), amazing food, and tons of things to do for very little money.

Workwise, you may want to check with your company to make sure your benefits (health care, vacation, retirement) are on-par with what you are used to in your home country.

The US is notorious for our workaholic culture and our lack of vacation/comp time compared to other countries.

Tiger

do it baby

Dum

They will probably work you to death more than here

bodinibold

Well as far as city living, you'll find it very similar to London (if you are from that city). While the buildings in Chicago are not quite as old, the style of living here is very close. Subway (tubes to you), a bustling nightlife, hip, lots of people (though not as closed in together as they are in London), a very diverse populace (almost every different nationality like London). We have winters as brutal as the UK and summers as hot as the UK. There's crime here too, like London, but it can be a little rougher (guns and all that). But for the most part it's safe. Millions of people live here and move here every year, so it must be OK.

As far as opportunities in nursing, I'm not sure but they don't appear to be too stable right now. The County Board recently announced they were making major layoffs in the county hospitals, meaning thousands of people, including nurses, are going to be out of work, and they will be jumping on any available nursing jobs here. i hope you have something lines up already. But there are hundreds of hospitals and clinics here so you should be able to find something.

Good luck and we'll see you at a Sox game! (or those other guys)

blazing_staruk

My advice would be ...Dont do it....

Dawn Wilson

do it united states is awesome

Joe Dunphy

It's a very, very bad idea.

Practically every unemployed professional in the United States (and we have a bumper crop) is advised, nay pressured, to go into health care, nursing being the usual recommendation. One doesn't have to be a prophet to see where that's leading - to a massive glut, drying up opportunities for those in the field and driving down wages, while leaving them in a gravely weakened negotiating position when management decides to be absurdly unreasonable.

The h1B program has already done much to create just that situation in nursing and a wealth of other professions, and unlike the UK, employment in Chicago is "at will"; you can lose your job for any reason or for no reason at all. Talk to physicians here - and make sure that you're approaching them and not them you, because the Internet is filled with volunteer fake experts who will invent backgrounds for themselves - and the story you will hear over and over again is one of hospital management cutting costs by trimming the nursing staff to the point at which it is working such long hours, at such an insanely high pace, that the staff is being pushed to the point of collapse in exchange for wages that barely keep its members out of personal bankuptcy. When a fatigued and eventually slightly disoriented workforce starts, inevitably, to make mistakes that it would not have made were it better rested, instead of questioning their own shortsighted greed, the admins will make a great show of hiring management consultants to teach the staff how to not make mistakes.

"Go to bed" would be a good first piece of advice, but post-Reagan, "management is always right and labor is always just a bunch of whiny crybabies whose complaints should be ignored, because the market is never wrong" has become part of the party line, and neither thinking nor really listening is in style here, any more. You'll get a few glib lines about how "we all have different experiences" from a few members of the leisure class, but notice that the "positive people" are talking about recreational opportunities, and those who are trying to talk you out of moving here are talking about work. What does that tell you?

If you lack an income - and in Chicago, that's an easy predicament to find yourself in, perversely enough, especially when you are educated - those recreational opportunities are going to be a very moot point. Try getting by, as a local welfare recipient, on the equivalent of one and a half pounds per day, having to choose whether or not you're going to fast today so that you can afford soap, and wondering if you're quite hungry enough to start exploring the dumpsters, because the local soup kitchen has run out of food during the latest economic downturn, and nobody is willing to hire the "overqualified". Does this sound like an experience that you'd want to travel a few thousand miles to share?

Even if you should be so fortunate as to never find yourself between jobs and wondering how to escape long term unemployment, if you have no free time or are on the verge of physical collapse, just how much good are those clubs, museums and restaurants going to do you?

The sad truth is the America is dominated by the culture that brought us the concept of "the Gentleman's C", in the case of almost every profession that requires an education making a great show of esteeming the craft, while scorning the craftsman, and then wondering why the craft isn't flourishing more than it has. Almost all rhetoric regarding the job market in Chicago or elsewhere in the United States comes in an attempt to mask over or rationalise that unsavory reality.

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