Chicago, Des Plaines: An Unfair Comparison

As a native of Chicago, I was offended by Alice Kahn’s column of June 24. She wrote about the middle-class Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Ill., the home of the McDonald’s hamburger museum, and concluded that Chicago and the Midwest are one giant, boring Des Plaines.

Her comparison was as unfair as it would be to compare Altadena and Glendale with the city of Chicago. In order to give a more balanced picture of the Midwest, I suggest that Kahn write a column in which she makes the latter comparison. After she compares the symphony orchestra, art museums, universities, and architecture of Chicago with the high points of Altadena and Glendale, she will reach the inevitable conclusion that the Midwest is a bastion of urban sophistication, and Southern California is an undifferentiated mass of boring suburban tackiness.

Even the “city” of Los Angeles is internationally famous for its hot dog stands with giant hot dogs on top, its doughnut shops with giant doughnuts on top, and other fast-food atrocities that make Des Plaines’ McDonald’s museum look like the Sistine Chapel.

The most obvious difference between Chicago and Los Angeles is one that Kahn did not mention: Chicago is a city surrounded by suburbs, and L.A. is merely a collection of suburbs surrounded by other suburbs. While Kahn was visiting the Midwest, she should have taken the opportunity to see something that doesn’t exist in Southern California: a city. Instead, she visited Des Plaines. Maybe she wanted to see something that would remind her of Southern California.

STEPHEN KAMEN

Altadena