Ugh: Why money matters in this city

I'm a big, big fan of Eric Zorn's weblog, opinionated though he may be, and every time I take a few weeks off from it I find I've missed things that should be required reading for every member of my fair city. This week it's about how being rich can get you more polite treatment while they're manhunting you. No kidding. I was talking with my awesome spouse about if and why Americans perceive Chicago as qualitatively different, and we had a great discussion over what we were and what we may become. Do you think, reading this, that in other parts of the country people would read this and say, "Egh, Chicago."? Or would they perceive that this could be their town, too?