[Chicago103]

Illinois is not associated with Chicago as much as New York is with NYC or California is with LA or SF. There is such a thing as a New York lifestyle (associated with NYC) and there is a California lifestyle, a Florida lifestyle, a Texas lifestyle, etc but not an Illinois lifestyle. When popular culture wants to refer to Chicago its simply called Chicago when Illinois is mentioned by itself usually it conjours up the same imagery as Iowa or Indiana; cornfields and small towns. Its associated with the midwest or the dreaded term "flyover country", heck even Chicago itself fails to escape that from the most ignorant people.

Take a picture of a Lake Michigan beach or harbor in Chicago during the summer time and slap the label "Illinois" on it and the brains of many coastal people would melt even though most of the Illinois population lives in close proximity to it. Chicagoans and suburbanites associate Illinois with Chicagoland and basically dont give downstate any thought, to them Illinois is pretty much just Chicago and a bunch of suburbs, to downstaters its just the opposite many of them dont think of Chicago when they think of Illinois but rather the cornfields and small towns closest to them. Heck one time in High School I wore a sweater that said "Illinois" on it and yet it had part of the Chicago skyline etched into it, it didnt show the whole skyline just boats as if it was taken from the breakwater and the skyline with skysrapers including the Aon Center in it so it wouldnt be very clear to untrained eyes. Anyways, this girl asked me if I was sure that was Chicago, that it could be St. Louis because the water could be the Mississippi River and the picture could have been taken from the Illinois side, never mind the fact that if that were true regardless of where it was taken from it would mostly be showing a Missouri scene. It just blowed my mind that someone could consider St. Louis to be more of an Illinois city than Chicago, but down in Decatur which is closer to St. Louis than Chicago and there are a number of St. Louis suburbs on the Illinois side thats the perspective they are coming from regardless of how strange that sounds to a Chicagoan.