>>144832
If you're talking Nolan, it was both. The Nolan Batman 1 & 2 were filmed in Chicago, but 3 was filmed in New York most likely because of the plot (nobody gets in or out of the city and they blew up the bridges – can't do that for Chicago since it's not an island). In the picture, you can see the One World Trade Center still under construction.
https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/3370/why-was-gotham-city-moved-to-new-york-city-in-the-dark-knight-rises
That being said, I think the creator of Gotham City did have Chicago in mind.
>Neal Adams, who has illustrated Batman for DC Comics since the 1970s, says he's always thought of Chicago, with its 1940s mobster history and miles of dark alleys, as the basis for Gotham City.
http://www.today.com/id/25774413/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/dark-knights-kind-town-gotham-city/
>>144824
>billboards
Even a billboard in a midwestern city would still be expensive (at least $3,000 for 4 weeks). I wouldn't mind donating to a legit crowdfund, but I doubt any Brother could afford to make the fire rise like that on his own. And where would we try for anyway? Would we do a smaller and cheaper town first as a trial and then move on to a Big City like NYC? I guess we could afford bus stops, but that's so lame. That's what a small guy does. And now that I think about it, we probably couldn't do a crowdfund at all. As much as I hate to admit it, and I'll probably be called a hothead for it, Baneposting doesn't have as many devotees as it did in 2015 when it was at its peak. It's on life support at this point. A billboard might help bring about a second wave, but we'd need a rich guy for that.