Chicago misses its global visitors more than thought
International travelers provide a different POV
Even as diners crowd Chicago’s sidewalks and lakefront paths are crammed with happy joggers, there’s still a big hole in the heart of reopened Chicago this summer.
What’s missing is easy to miss as, say, you stand on a downtown corner, grateful for the returning foot traffic and the fresh air, or as you head with family or friends for a night out on the town. But it’s palpable, nonetheless. Just stand and listen to what you are not hearing.
People visiting from other countries now are almost impossible to find in Chicago.
Think back to the summers of 2018 or 2019 — the tourist areas of the city were filled with different languages and accents, heads tilted back to marvel at the high-rise architecture, fingers jabbing at electronic guides, CTA neophytes seeking some friendly transfer assistance from a citizen. People from all corners of the world were seeking the blues, The Bean, the Blues Brothers.
Deep dish, dogs and Dillinger.
This summer? Not so much. Not really at all.
That’s because international travel, especially intercontinental travel, remains effectively closed. Even Canadians still can’t come here for leisure travel. And that means the vibe of our town has changed. Chicago’s summer has lost its typical aura of a global celebration in the heart of the Midwest.
The impact on tourist-dependent businesses, like hotels, blues clubs and tour boats on the Chicago River, is obvious. Tourists coming here from such big markets as Asia, South America and Europe mean jobs for guides, servers, housekeepers, musicians and a variety of other staffers.
Those workers need those tourists to return and any city becomes safer for everyone when there are more people walking on its streets, especially at night. International tourists offer increased safety for everyone.
But there are other forms of loss, too.
A lot of those missing international visitors are members of a Chicagoan’s family.
The city is now full of immigrants who have not seen their mothers, their fathers, their children or their cousins in months, if not years. This is not due to a lack of desire, but the impracticality of travel, even by humble means.
Those citizens carry that weight around with them. Most just don’t talk about it so much.
Like everything else with COVID-19, few of these barriers have been erected with regard to fairness. The world has proved unable to deal with the crisis in any kind of unified way. Exceptions have been granted to elite athletes and government officials even as a family with a sick relative is faced with reams of bureaucracy, costly testing, or the sheer impossibility of penetrating a closed border.
Flights have been reduced. Reunions delayed, canceled and given up upon. Connective tissue has been frayed. Other parts of the world, and the people you love therein, seem much further away. This is especially acute when it seems like the city otherwise is returning to normal activity, for that’s only true when everyone you want to see resides on this side of the border.
This summer, the city’s cultural recovery is taking place with fine performers resident in the United States, all of whom are deserving of our attention and resources. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that hugely talented locals who have had to fight for attention are getting more opportunity and more resources thrown their way.
But international artists offer perspective and a guard against Chicagostyle myopia, a constant danger in the middle of a prairie where tempers can flair and weaponized voices raise against trivial issues. Cities with big problems, like this one, often find it easier to ignore the intractable and focus instead on the symbolic. This is endemic in Chicago this summer. There is a chronic lack of a global perspective.
People from countries with less help us appreciate what we have here. Those from places with less division and fewer gun deaths offer aspirational models. International points of view offer new ideas, clever innovations, the ability to learn from those who might already have solved a similar problem in a different place. They often are not in debt to the same ways of thinking as we are here. They elevate the level of our civic discourse from its shameful current state.
Historically, this constant interest in the world is how Chicago became Chicago and solidified its advantages over its region. With its transportation hubs, its great newspapers, its consulates, its close-knit communities of immigrants, its high-rise HQs, Chicago always strove to be a global city. It has always wanted to be talked about elsewhere. And it’s going to have to be willing to listen to elsewhere again. As a priority.
Hopes, of course, are high that these barriers will diminish as the days grow shorter and vaccines become more pervasive. And it’s certainly true these problems are similarly acute in other major American cities right now. (Midtown New York without international visitors is a shadow of its normal self.)
But you sure feel it this summer in Chicago.
While governments have a duty to keep citizens safe, it’s also vital that the ability to travel is safely restored as a matter of urgency. The benefits go far beyond a potential vacation. They are crucial to our ability to grow, solve problems and act like we’re citizens of the world.