Naperville Isn't THAT Bad

If you're reading this and are not from Chicagoland, let me briefly explain Naperville, IL to people: it's a suburb about 30 miles west/southwest of Chicago proper. It's known as being the prototypical upper middle class to upper class, white-picket-fence-suburban city but over the years the rest of Chicagoland has developed a sort of disdain for people from the town. 

Here's a map for those who can't read: 

The "disdain" stems from the fact that most people from Naperville say they're from Chicago when asked, though. It drives a lot of people born/bred in Chicago city limits to go crazy. 

Just look at the comments on this video: 

I set up Tom here because I knew exactly how he'd answer and I knew the internet would shit on both of us for it. 

I can give a good "take" here because I both:

1. grew up hating Naperville. They were our rivals in sports (I went to Wheaton Warrenville South)
2. I lived in Naperville for 6 years myself, as I went to North Central and lived there a little bit after college

My stance here is simple: if I am speaking with someone in Chicagoland whom I know is from the area, I say I'm from Warrenville. If I'm in NYC or out of town and know whomever I'm speaking with doesn't know wtf Warrenville is, I say I'm from Chicago just to make the conversation simple.

That's it and that's how I'll always operate, in spite of what people like Ed bitching and moaning about it. 

Now Ed is a born bred city slicker. He had a wedding in Oak Brook a few years back and he acted like he was driving to Mars. A lot of people like Ed don't know SHIT about Naperville. It's really as simple as this: 

- it has an awesome college bar scene for DIVISION III STANDARDS

That's the start and end of it. The Lantern, Peanuts, Quigley's, Jimmy's, etc. etc. etc. all made for an adequate (by D3 college standards!!!) college experience. I have compared downtown Naperville to Chicago's Old Town before. Obviously that's not an apples to apples comparison, but I think it gives a general vibe of what DT Naperville is like. 

Is it Madison, WI? No, but it's also not Whitewater Wisconsin, Alliance OH (where Mt. Union is) or any other shit hole nobody town of 3,000 people a lot of other D3 schools are located. That made for a decent time in college. 

Aside from that? It's no different than any of these suburbs: 

- Wheaton, Schaumburg, Orland Park, Arlington Heights, Libertyville, Elmhurst, St. Charles, Crystal Lake, 

They're all literally carbon copies of each other, just a bunch of upper middle class suburbs outside of a fun major city in a pretty shittilly ran state.