Quote:
Originally Posted by LAsam
Similar to the "Bay Area" and "Southland" in California. A unique term to describe the larger unique urbanized area. I wonder what other names there are out there for like these. Is "Chicagoland" a thing? I feel like I've heard that term before.
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"Chicagoland" is definitely a thing, and has been used for nearly a century now to collectively refer to Chicago and its vast suburban realm, and at times its even vaster rural hinterlands.
But Chicagoland isn't a terribly unique urbanized area. It's just a big old giant legacy city, circled by pre-war inner-ring suburbia with strings of older railroad suburbia radiating out like a sunburst, and then all back-filled in the post-war era by one of the most vast and pervasive suburban sprawls around.
We could have just as easily had a "Detroitland" or a "Bostonland" or a "Houstonland" or whatever.
For some reason, the Chicago region is the only one that I'm aware of that took on the "-land" suffix.
Perhaps the citizens of other US cities weren't as high on their own supply as chicagoans were back in the day to conflate themselves with a european nation? (ie. Eng
land, Ire
land, Scot
land, Po
land, Fin
land, etc.)
that said, this separate identity that chicagolanders hold on to is another contributing factor in the great IL political/economic/cultural divide between the big city and downstate. i legit don't really think of myself as an "illinoisian" the way that bay area people still think of themselves as "californians", or that metroplex dwellers still think of themselves as "texans". from a chicagoland perspective, "illinoisians" are a different tribe of people who live down among the corn.