As Will Hansen strolled through the streets of Chicago for the first time, skyscrapers gave him a strange sense of vertigo \u2014 something the native of Missoula, Montana, often experiences in large cities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the tallest building in my town has seven floors, so it\u2019s obviously really different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After just a few field trips, Chicago quickly left an impression on cherubs gathered from 20 states and four foreign countries.<\/p>\n
Students more familiar with urban life than Hansen appreciated Chicago\u2019s unique quirks and familiarity that separate it from other U.S. cities.<\/p>\n
\u201cChicago feels a lot more homey,” said Savannah Smith from San Francisco. “It feels like people actually live in the city.\u201d She described the city as a good blend of San Francisco and New York.<\/p>\n
Jane Mercer from Memphis, Tennessee, said she felt safer in Chicago than in her hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also just so easy to walk places,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels more like home. It feels like somewhere where I\u2019m comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colin Ho explained, \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the city, it feels like there\u2019s more life there,\u201d as opposed to his home city of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
After visiting New York City, Iowa native Evelyn Kraber found Chicago less overwhelming, with fewer people but rich in culture. Chicago offered cherubs a welcome contrast from suburban Evanston.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reminds me of the difference between Georgia and Chicago,\u201d said Natalia Abuladze, from the republic of Georgia. \u201cYou need to be exposed to the abundance of people, and things, and events, and noise that you don\u2019t get much of in Evanston.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cherubs find a home in Chicago despite only visiting a handful of times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":9278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[435],"class_list":["post-8059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","category-going-to-chicago"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":435,"user_id":260,"is_guest":0,"slug":"ellasmith","display_name":"Ella Smith","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9b93b636826811b3f0936555932b8c140856d85809ea1c7fab09bf882e562d46?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Smith","first_name":"Ella","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8059"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10199,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions\/10199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8059"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=8059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}