Berwyn, the most underrated suburb of Chicago (Des Plaines, Oak Park: crime rates, house)

[David2300]

Originally Posted by ToriaT

There are reasons that many consider Homewood undesirable. There are many that shy away from the South suburbs.

Stuff does go on in Homewood and I can certainly see why people might find it undesirable. It certainly isn't as posh as New Lenox and Evanston, but it has a great downtown, great schools, affordable housing, and excellent transportation, both Metra and Amtrak, along with a bunch of bus routes. It is also diverse.

However, the overall crime rate is quite low and most of what goes on is minor property crime. Homewood is by no doubt getting better and better as the years go on. In the coming decades I can see more and more people moving to it and promoting it. The only thing that could stop Homewood is if the local government literally said "screw it" and resigned. Otherwise, Homewood will stand tall in an area of suburbs that are dangerous and overall eyesores.

P.S. The many that shy away from the south suburbs see the Riverdale-Harvey area and just rule out the entire area. But areas like Homewood, Flossmoor, and Olympia Fields are safe and great communities. But I'd recommend Homewood out of those three any day.

[ToriaT]

More seems to have been written on Berwyn than any other suburb.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by ToriaT

More seems to have been written on Berwyn than any other suburb.

Most middle/upper middle class white people have a huge problem with the idea of living around low/mod income minorities, let's be honest here. It's a long not-so-proud tradition in Chicago. And Berwyn is a low/mod income minority-majority suburb that's close to the City with good housing stock and lower housing costs/taxes. So some whites live there or want to for those reasons, and other whites voice their dismay at this. Then, the former react by zealously defending their choice, and the latter react by defending their views. And presto, you have a 150+ post thread about Berwyn on City-Data :-)

Most other low/mod income minority-majority suburbs do not generate this kind of "controversy" because they don't have as many saving graces, so there's no interest in them by these individuals and thus no posts about them. In the City, there isn't the same dismay when a Caucasian moves into a minority-majority neighborhood for whatever reason. My guess is because gentrification is considered a possibility in a City neighborhood, but not in a suburb.

[ToriaT]

Who knows? Maybe there will be gentrification there...it could happen. Obviously its not everyone's cup of tea. It will be interesting to see who all the people are there that are buying the flipped houses.

[ChiAreaGuy]

This month, 5-7 topics about Berwyn alone. Lol, stop paying so much attention to it.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by ChiAreaGuy

This month, 5-7 topics about Berwyn alone. Lol, stop paying so much attention to it.

Bump! Haha!

[lifelongchicagoland]

Originally Posted by BRU67

I do agree that school scores are overemphasized. Sometimes I think a certain competitive class uses them simply to prove how much bigger their you-know-what's are than the you-know-what's of another community.

But I don't think schools are irrelevant either, especially in a place that is seeing increasing enrollment and becoming increasingly low income. South Berwyn D100 went from 33% low income in 2000 to 73% low income by 2014. Kids with special needs, such as ESL learners, are increasing rapidly too. They now make up a quarter of all D100 students.

I personally think it's great that people are leaving the CPS cesspool and trying to get a better life. But who's going to pay for this? Aside from more resources, they also need upgraded facilities -- according to District 100 last year anyway, who showed everyone horrible pictures of buckets under leaky roofs and fans being operated by extension cords during last year's doomed referendum. Their spending per pupil is about $1,100 below the already sorry Illinois average. And about 47% of its funding comes from our shaky State government. Oak Park only needs to rely on the State for 18% of its funding.

I love Berwyn and hope that the residents aren't ignoring the very real issues they are facing with their schools. The consequences of that could be disastrous.

This one is right on the money. I just moved out of Berwyn this summer due to the low quality schools and changing demographics. I moved to LaGrange, and my neighbors are far nicer and higher quality than the new residents that were moving into Berwyn. The biggest misconception I've been reading is how family oriented Berwyn is. The town is unfortunately going in the wrong direction. I can tell you this much, none of the new families I saw were moving in from nicer cities. They were all Austin, Lawndale, and Cicero. No way was I going to jepordize my child's well being, even if I did have a beautiful house. It just wasn't worth it. Its really unfortunate. The housing stock is atteactive, but demographically, Berwyn is undesirable to all but the lower classes. They seem to look Berwyn as some kind of promisemland simply because its not "as bad" as the sums they are moving from.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by lifelongchicagoland

This one is right on the money. I just moved out of Berwyn this summer due to the low quality schools and changing demographics. I moved to LaGrange, and my neighbors are far nicer and higher quality than the new residents that were moving into Berwyn. The biggest misconception I've been reading is how family oriented Berwyn is. The town is unfortunately going in the wrong direction. I can tell you this much, none of the new families I saw were moving in from nicer cities. They were all Austin, Lawndale, and Cicero. No way was I going to jepordize my child's well being, even if I did have a beautiful house. It just wasn't worth it. Its really unfortunate. The housing stock is atteactive, but demographically, Berwyn is undesirable to all but the lower classes. They seem to look Berwyn as some kind of promisemland simply because its not "as bad" as the sums they are moving from.

It's good you were able to get to a place where you feel comfortable. But to be fair to the families moving there, maybe the school scores aren't all that much better than CPS at this point, but at least there aren't yellow signs reminding people not to shoot around their children, vacant boarded up buildings, empty lots, crumbled streets that the City ignores, speed cameras every 5 feet (interestingly not present in places like Lakeview), and gangs who have turned their neighborhood into a twisted modern ghetto version of the O.K. Corral. That's a huge step up, not merely "not as bad."

The state of life in Austin, Lawndale and some other community areas in Chicago is pitiful, something I doubt many of us posting on here can at all relate to. Obviously, the residents of these communities, who have low incomes and limited educations, can't afford to move to La Grange like you were able to do. So they move to a suburb that is safe and affordable. Can you blame them for making this choice? What else is there?

[Runuova]

Originally Posted by lifelongchicagoland

I moved to LaGrange, and my neighbors are far nicer and higher quality than the new residents that were moving into Berwyn.

This sounds so elitist to me for some reason.

We all want better for our children but it almost sounded as if your child was better than the other children moving into the neighborhood. Did they just look different or was there crime following them to Berwyn?

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Runuova

This sounds so elitist to me for some reason.

We all want better for our children but it almost sounded as if your child was better than the other children moving into the neighborhood. Did they just look different or was there crime following them to Berwyn?

Crime has nothing to do with it. Berwyn does not have nor has it ever had a high crime rate. School scores had nothing to do with it for awhile either, as until recently some of Berwyn's elementary schools were on a ISAT score par with some Oak Park schools (though the high school has stunk for awhile but I think it was pretty decent when white flight started there in the early 1990s).

This mentality is prevalent throughout the Chicagoland area and even throughout the country. This poster was just spunky enough to admit it. Most couch their real feelings in various justifications, even to themselves. But at the end of the day, they're thinking along similar lines that this poster is.