NATO Summit is not popular in host city Chicago

AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh

(CBS News) CHICAGO -- As a gesture to his hometown, President Obama is bringing the NATO Summit to Chicago this weekend. It will give the city's economy a boost, but if it weren't for the honor of being catapulted onto the world stage, some in Chicago wish NATO went elsewhere.

The front page of today's Chicago Sun-Times reflected the view of some Chicagoans with a headline that turned NATO into an acronym for Now Comes Our Ordeal.

The newspaper offered its readers a six-page "Survival Guide" for the NATO gathering that will bring representatives of 62 nations and an estimated 20,000 delegation members, aides, security personnel and media to Chicago.

Here is some advice, the Sun-Times told its readers: Stay home.

The presence of world leaders means motorcade gridlock; it means road detours and closures, traffic congestion on steroids, bus route and train schedule disruptions. Local rail passengers may find themselves subject to pat downs and will face limits on what they can bring on board.

And then there are the protestors who see these periodic gatherings of world leaders as passports to the international spotlight.

The Secret Service, which coordinates security at this gathering of world leaders, says it hopes for the best but is ready for the worst.

International summits in the U.S. and abroad have often been the target of violent demonstrators. To protect the leaders, police have erected perimeters of fencing around those areas of Chicago where the Summit leaders will be gathering.

President Obama is known to feel bad that he was unable to help Chicago win its bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Steering the NATO Summit to the city is meant, in part, as a way of making up for it. Clearly, some in Chicago feel he shouldn't have gone to the trouble.

[marychgo]

It's not ordinary Chicagoans who are whining about NATO; it's the well-off who live near the Loop: either south, near McCormick Place, where the meetings will occur; or north, where many of the hotels where dignitaries are staying are. About the only thing ordinary Chicagoans are complaining about are the several rail lines that will be shutting down on Monday.

On the other hand, there ARE Chicagoans who think the money (whether public or private) being spent to host thousands of NATO dignataries and the press that covers them might better be spent on education, health care, mental health care, and other areas whose budgets Chicago and Illinois are busily cutting. Can't say I disagree, though I don't think NATO is the enemy....

[cbsreader2010]

Are Chicagoians Wusses? Did Dick Cheney finally turn us all into cowards with his unrelenting fear scares? Are the pioneers who settled Chicago looking down at their decendants and sadly shaking their heads? Or have we all become whiners and complainers? I can't see the WWII generation ever making a headline that turns an honor into an "ordeal." Maybe it's just the jounralists. Thought they were tougher than that.

[Tiredashell]

Sorry I lack sympathy, but many of us in "downstate" Illinois tire of hearing Chicagoans whining about the plight of having a plethora of advantages. Oh poor us, we have to choose which of our multiple indoor swimming pools to use for our swim team and its such a burden. Phooey! You are lucky as hell a politician cares enough about you to send NATO your way. What's a little gridlock in Chicago anyway? Moreover, the most recent Chicago "Mugs in the News" had three pedestrians killed by hit and run drivers in one report. Maybe you guys need to slow down a little and quit killing each other. Most of the rest of Illinois is suffering, but we are not in the news whining about it if or when someone tries to help us out. Also, we don't have the kinds of friends you do. Unlike Chicago, the rest of the state doesn't own all the state politicians and the President doesn't drop in and say hello when he's in the country. We just plod along building our shanties with sticks and string we collect on the roadside after Chicago gangsters speed through our towns throwing garbage out the window while trying to escape Patrick Fitzgerald (my favorite Chicagoan). So, suck it up Chicago, and count your blessings! And to Mr. Fitzgerald, may the force be with you.