Chicago

Vol. 221

Our latest guide all about Chicago is out now! To celebrate, this week’s Field Guide is dedicated to our newest destination.

On the cover of this volume, we call Chicago “America’s City.” That moniker might be controversial in certain circles. But in so many ways, Chicago helped create the vision of the modern American metropolis, not just by virtue of its skyscrapers and its public transportation, but also more broadly by building its identity around public, shared spaces. In Stranger’s Guide: Chicago, you’ll see this city from numerous vantage points and encounter many elements of Chicago that too often go unacknowledged.

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Chi Boy

By Keenan Norris

Not long after the end of World War II, a family of three travels from Canton, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois. They are moving between great factory-powered provinces, but really they are Southerners: The man is from Birmingham, the woman from old, rural Florida, and she is beautiful and sad as everything raised there is. The child, known to close family as Butch, meanwhile, is an infant born in the passage: Unlike his parents, he is a Northerner. Born in Canton, he will be a son of Chicago, of Kedzie Avenue and Cottage Grove.