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Chicago's status as the cultural and financial heart of middle
America is beyond question. The Loop downtown holds the head
offices of many major US companies and some of the nation's
most important commodity markets , which together handle the
buying and selling of one-third of the world's agricultural
and industrial products.
For visitors, Chicago offers the Art Institute of Chicago and
a wide range of excellent museums (many of which have one day
of free admission per week), restaurants, sports and highbrow
cultural activities. However, its strongest suit is live music
, with a phenomenal array of jazz and blues clubs packed into
the back rooms of its amiable bars and cafes. The rock scene
is also one of the healthiest in the country with a prolific
number of bands having come out of the city in the 1990s, including
Smashing Pumpkins, Material Issue, Veruca Salt and Wilco. And
almost everything is noticeably less expensive than in other
US cities eating out , for example, costs much less than in
New York or LA, but is every bit as good. Though locals might
deny it, the city has a surprisingly low-key and generally welcoming
population Chicagoans on the whole area proud of their city
and usually keen to point out its best features.
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