Kate Rockwood

Not too many years ago, an experienced linguist could listen to a local news broadcast and guess by the announcer's accent where the show originated. That's probably unlikely today. The relentless mobility of Americans and the booming mass media, among other things, have scoured many of the regional distinctions across the country. With that in mind, we thought it would be interesting to see how the nation's five biggest cities compared across a range of business, social, and cultural categories...

Originally published February 2006, Chicago magazine