January 2008 | From the Publisher
Chicago: Super City
This month Conscious Choice kicks off its 21st year of publishing the premier Chicago LOHAS publication. Our tagline has evolved from “the journal of ecology and natural living” to “an enlightened urban lifestyle magazine focusing on social, green, health, food and spiritual consciousness.” However, I can safely report we are assisting the growth of some of the same advertisers who started with us in 1987, as well as some of the same staff. We can also boast a wide array of new business growth internally and externally. Though rock-solid, we are never really still.
Pondering the solidity and momentum of Conscious Choice focused my mind on that same unique nature which is the essence of Chicago itself. I took an informal poll, gathered my comrades and fellow workers, and came up with a list of what makes our geography extraordinary.
What we started out with is this observation: Though the larger part of our media holdings do business all over the country, we have seen the Midwest’s social tectonic plates are the least likely to shift and jar the trend Richter scale. The norm is to embrace what is logical and grounded in honesty. And once we grab hold, we are not quick to let go. We tip our hats to stability.
We are a world class city. We are rich with culture. If you want music, be it folk, gospel, blues, jazz, classical, rock, we have it all and all the time. We have everything from Broadway-quality live theater to independent experimental theatrical companies. Who hasn’t been in awe viewing the vast collection of French Impressionist works at the Art Institute or the marvelously cunning works of new artists in the galleries of River North? Cuisine — that is an entire book in itself. Not only can you experiment with food from any culture or country imaginable, you’re very likely to find most of it in vegan/vegetarian forms — with the added bonus of sampling the culture as well as the food.
The cultures of food, or the food of cultures, brings to the forefront our ethnic and social diversity. We are a city of neighborhoods, shaped by our gravity for newcomers since the mid-late 1700s. As each pattern of immigration established a hold in some portion of what is our city, those patterns created communities within a larger community. The Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2005, Chicago Historical Society (in an entry by Henry C. Binford) states so eloquently: “… the city overall growing as a mosaic of cultural tiles, a collection of discrete, long-enduring, slowly changing ethnic/racial cells.”
All of this and a lake view, too! We are on the shore of the largest body of water fully contained within the U.S. Lake Michigan boasts a shoreline over 1,600 miles in length (longer than a trip from Chicago to Key West, FL).
I have so much more to say about our super city, but the one item I must applaud in closing is Chicago’s passion for animals. According to The Humane Society of the U.S., the national average for households owning at least one dog is 39 percent and at least one cat is 36 percent. According to our most recent reader survey (11/2007) the Chicago average is 46 percent and 43 percent respectively. That’s pretty warm and fuzzy.
So, thank you Chicago, for all you provide us and for 21 super years. We look forward to 21 (or so) more!
Woof!
— Richard McGinnis
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