Chicago is considered one of the largest Democratic
strongholds in the United States, for example, the
citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican
mayor since 1927 when William Thompson was voted into
office. See this complete list of former Chicago mayors.
For its youth compared to Eastern cities, Chicago
has made many significant pop-cultural contributions.
In the field of music, Chicago is very well-known
for its Chicago blues, but it is also the origin of
the House style of music, whose history is related
to the development and fostering of the techno electronic
style of music in nearby Detroit. In addition, in
the field of culinary arts, Chicago provides the antithesis
to New York styles of pizza and hot dogs, being synonymous
with deep dish and stuffed pizza in addition to being
linked to a robustly complex hot dog that challenges
the relative simplicity of a New York coney dog. In
addition, Chicago schools have developed in various
aspects of study, such as the famed Chicago school
of architecture and the Chicago schools of economic
theory, literary criticism and urban sociology, the
three latter founded by the University of Chicago.
Chicago is a well-known theater capital and is the
Mecca for improvisational comedy. It is home to The
Second City and ImprovOlympic, two of the largest
comedy troupes in the world. Many world-famous actors
and comedians are from Chicago or have studied there,
particularly at Northwestern University.
Historically, Chicago is remembered for machine politics
("Vote early and vote often" and "A
city run of the Daleys, by the Daleys, for the Daleys"
are two phrases associated with Chicago politics),
meat packing (as mentioned in the nicknames section
and made infamous by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle),
and gangster violence during Prohibition (some key
figures are linked to Chicago, such as Al Capone and
John Dillinger).
The following attractions are based in Chicago:
