A Chicago Tribune story on the troubles facing President Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois includes some interesting information about where else Reagan lived when he was young:

However, Theodore Karamanski, a history professor at Loyola University Chicago, said presidential birth and boyhood homes aren’t often historically significant, with the possible exception of presidents like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Historians tend to favor places that were central during periods of power.

He pointed out that presidents often have several homes they lived in during childhood, including Reagan, who even lived for a time on the South Side of Chicago.

Instead, it is the local communities that generally push for a historic designation for birth and boyhood homes.

Before Barack Obama, only one U.S. President had called Chicago home. As a boy, Ronald Reagan lived on the first floor of the building at 832 East 57th Street.

The Reagans moved into their apartment in January of 1915. They’d come to the city from the western Illinois village of Tampico. Jack Reagan, Ronald’s father, got a job selling shoes in the Loop. His wife, Nelle, stayed home with the two boys, 6-year-old Neil and little Ron–called “Dutch”–who was going on 4…

Sometime in 1916 the Reagan family left Chicago and moved to Galesburg. It’s not clear whether Jack quit his Loop job, or was fired. But their time in Hyde Park was over.

Reagan lived more of his younger years outside of the big city; but, imagine he lived there longer. Or, he chose to remember the Chicago experience as more formative. Or, the Chicago neighborhood put more effort into remembering him as living there.

Perhaps the biggest issue (besides the length of time the family lived in Chicago) is that this image of a big city boy does not match Reagan’s own politics or how he was perceived. Can a Republican leader in the United States claim to be from a big city, not from the metropolitan region but from the big city itself? Given the voting breakdown of recent elections as well as the anti-urban inclinations of conservatives, this does not sound likely. In a country that still idealizes small town life, claiming to represent those parts of the country can go a long ways.

Current President Donald Trump presents an alternative to this conservative small-town vision. Born in and still a resident of New York City, Trump is hardly a small-town or even a suburban conservative. As a real estate developer, he aims to bring large buildings with his name on them to big cities around the world. His policies do not align with a pro-urban vision even as he is clearly a city person. And, I would guess this big-city conservative is an anomaly rather than an ongoing trend for Republicans.

Ronald Reagan as a Chicago native is far-fetched but it does suggest an alternative vision: conservatives who are from and for big cities. This would require a massive shift in ideology but it is not unprecedented nor impossible. Perhaps it would just take a mythical icon of the party would saw the city as their home and priority.