[ardecila]

Yeah, this city is pretty much a cameraman's dream.

Shameless does a great job of giving the neighborhood feel. I was never quite in that economic bracket but it reminds me of my early years in Beverly. I'm not really a huge fan of the race-to-the-bottom attempt to keep making the show more twisted and dark, but occasionally the show gets a Dickensian feel and really shows how clever and enterprising poor people can be, which is a really refreshing contrast to the blame-game view of poverty that seems to be popular nowadays.

The show's mainly filmed in Little Village, I think... virtually all the characters are white and presumably Irish, but I guess Bridgeport and Brighton Park didn't offer the right feel. They're remarkably consistent, too - all the exterior shots are filmed in Chicago, which takes the crew all over the city. They've even shot in Highland Park.