[trowawee]

Also a bit of a misanthrope, but I'd totally second this. I moved to Chicago from another Midwestern city that had no public transit a few years back, and I seriously sing the praises of the CTA to everyone. I have my share of gripes about city life, but on the whole, I love Chicago and I love public transit. I went from spending half an hour every morning and half an hour every evening in the boring-but-also-dangerous hell that is a car commute to spending that same time on a train. I usually listen to music in the morning and read in the evenings, and I've listened to more new albums and read more new books in the last few years than I have in any comparable period since college.