Chicago, exotic, magical and gritty at the same time?

Before popping the gentrification question, Claire Zulkey gets Alex Kotlowitz to describe his evolving perspective on Chicago: "I suppose most outside Chicago think of it as this rough and tumble place, one that will take you for all your worth if you're not watchful. Coming from New York, I thought of it as provincial—which is how most easterners and Los Angelenos think of it. I grew up in New York, and there's no question that there folks hang around with like-minded folks —writers with writers, lawyers with lawyers, money people with money people. That's not the case in Chicago. It's a democratic (small 'd') place—where every thing and every one is out there in the open, for better or for worse... Look, the truth of the matter is, it's a complicated city, filled with paradoxes. But I like how my artist friend Tony Fitzpatrick thinks of it: as exotic, like Bombay or Istanbul. It is exotic, magical and gritty at the same time."