Let me offer something else. Let me offer you glimpses of Chicago that hint at its character and texture. Or, for another insight, plop yourself down at the corner of Lawrence and Kedzie avenues in the Albany Park neighborhood, the cultural crossroads of a city that is a cultural crossroads. I know, that's what NATO is. But life in Albany Park is nitty-gritty, day-in day-out diversity. It's eat-in-each-other's-restaurants and shop-at-each-other's-stores diversity. There is a Lebanese bakery and a Guatemalan bakery. There is Baghdad Kabab restaurant and Lindo Michoacan. Jerusalem Liquors and Peking Mandarin. Nazareth Sweets and Ur Cafe. There are store signs in Arabic and Korean. Others in Chinese characters and in Japanese script. True, not every Chicago neighborhood is like Albany Park. Many are still heavily white or heavily African-American or heavily Mexican. But this is a city in which a NATO's worth of cultural variety can be found riding on scores of Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains each day.
I've been discovering much of this city by running a new route every day since I moved here three months ago. One of the few routes I repeat is a run that takes me through Albany Park. It is exactly what Reardon describes - a crossroads of cultures. It's endlessly fascinating, and so far removed from the Chicago that even many long-time residents - even those living just a few blocks away - ever experience.