Sufjan Stevens will say he prefers living in New York City over Chicago. *But New York City, despite accolades for Stevens in their newspapers, despite accepting Stevens into their charmingly ironic “anti-folk” scene and despite giving Stevens a chance to hobnob with intellectual all-stars like Philip Glass, is not a tribe where boys are expected to become superior men on their own terms. Jeff Tweedy, Hugh Hefner, Ernest Hemingway and Kanye West—all native Illinoisans—are bound by this simple fact.

Illinois is where Louis Armstrong found his sound, where Louis Sullivan saw architecture in the sky, where Barack Obama rallied a nation and where Muddy Waters plugged in and made the world loud. New York will chew you up if your ironic T-shirt isn’t ironic enough, but in Illinois, hipsters are imports.

Anywhere else, cute girls will say you’re “amazing,” but in Chicago, unless you can prove you are sincerely invested in your work, or you’re paying off city hall, no one’s that impressed.