chicago heights is the best town in america

[urza216]

Originally Posted by allen2323

Chicago heights has several middle income residential areas. Chicago heights has mainly one large low income high crime area that gives the rest of the heights a bad name. That large area is located east of halsted and is centered around lincoln hwy. I wouldn't even recommend stopping at a gas station over on that side. Up until maybe 10 years ago there was a very large and noticeable open air drug market going on over there. The state police came in and shut it down. Even high school kids from hf used to drive there and buy weed. It had 24 hour drive thru car service in an rap around apartment complex parking lot. Why Chicago Heights PD couldn't shut it down alone at that time I don't know. When people talk about about how there was government involvement with bringing drugs in the community in the 70's through the 90's, this is why many don't find it so far fetched. What was going on there was so blatent and obvious. Those kind of in your face things were allowed to go on for years and really took the area completely down beyond the point were it will be able to return. Chicago heights west of halsted is were marion catholic high school is, prarrie state college, and where any retail in the chicago heights like the movie theater, grocery store, restaurants, fast food places, and strip malls are located. You will find several decent residential areas west of halsted. The change when you go past halsted heading east is immediate. The residential areas around marion catholic high school is middle income. Most of the height west of halsted is very decent and totally livable.

So true. It gets really bad really quick. When heading east, unless you're getting on the 394 expressway, it's best not to drive past the Church's Chicken on the corner of Halsted and Lincoln Highway. There's nothing there except for abandoned buildings, churches and liquor stores anyway. There used to be a liquor store called Ricky's on the east side that sold booze to minors. It was shut down. We had some good old times though.

There is still an open air drug market on the east side. This never went away. I find it incredible the stuff you can get away with in plain sight east of Halsted that you could NEVER get away with west of Halsted. I don't know if the Chicago Heights PD is scared or they just don't care, maybe both.

[FleeTheRustBelt]

I don't think I'd want to live west of Halsted and south of 30 either, although that area is not AS bad as the east side. I went to high school in the mid-late 90's in Park Forest (after living in the Heights between ages 4 and 11) and remember classmates talking about buying weed on Arnold and Wentworth. That open-air drug market was probably allowed to flourish because between the 70's and 90's the Heights was run by somewhat of a miniature, Republican, Italian version of the Daley machine that couldn't care less if the blacks and Mexicans shot each other as long as the whites in the newer part of town didn't flee.

The thing a lot of people don't realize about the Heights is that it is an old industrial CITY, not a 20th century suburb, or farm town/railroad stop turned suburb like the towns that surround it. It has (or had) its own downtown, newspaper, radio station, ethnic immigrant neigborhoods, rust-belt factories, etc. It's more fairly compared to places like Hammond, Harvey and Joliet than Matteson, Frankfort or Munster.

[urza216]

In my understanding, most of the factories and steel mills in the Heights were located on the east side. Most of them have shut down. The factories are overseas and the steel industry doesn't thrive as it once did. There are a few factories/still mills that remain such as Calumet Steel on State Street. However, remaining factories and steel mills usually hire a lot of temps and/or the wages aren't NEARLY as high as they were at one time.

[Steel Ovaries]

Originally Posted by urza216

ALL of the Heights? Generalization, much? Yeah, there are ghettos in Chicago Heights but it's a big town and it's not ALL a big ghetto.

Does a ghetto have the community college for the the area or a catholic high school? Chicago Heights has the DMV office and the social security office.. I got my drivers license in The Heights. I renewed my drivers license in The Heights. If you live in a nearby town, sometime or another, there's gonna be a reason why you have to go to the Heights. I view ghettos as places you never have to go to unless you're looking to score - Chicago Heights isn't that at all.

When 3/4's of the town is ghetto, it is not a generalization to say it is a ghetto. The residents themselves even post things like "stay out of the East, and downtown, and, and, and". Um, when the list of places to stay out of is bigger than the list of places you can go, then it is a ghetto. And yes, many ghettos still have colleges and Catholic schools because they were built before the place became a ghetto and are hanging on.

It may not be the worst of the worst, but that doesn't make it a nice place.

[allen2323]

Originally Posted by Steel Ovaries

When 3/4's of the town is ghetto, it is not a generalization to say it is a ghetto. The residents themselves even post things like "stay out of the East, and downtown, and, and, and". Um, when the list of places to stay out of is bigger than the list of places you can go, then it is a ghetto. And yes, many ghettos still have colleges and Catholic schools because they were built before the place became a ghetto and are hanging on.

It may not be the worst of the worst, but that doesn't make it a nice place.

I agree in part with you. I would say the more accurate way to describe chicago heights is that chicago heights has a ghetto not that chicago heights is a ghetto. But, Chicago heights also has middle class areas that look and feel more like the surrounding areas of chicago heights like homewood and glenwood than the ghetto part of chicago heights. Chicago heights even has a solidly middle class residential area around holbrook rd and chicago rd were there are very nice newer homes in the 250k to 400k range mixed in with nice slightly older middle class homes. The area around volmer rd west of prarie state college and the area around marion catholic are also both more middle class.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by allen2323

I would say the more accurate way to describe chicago heights is that chicago heights has a ghetto not that chicago heights is a ghetto.

Exactly.

[suburban_boy]

Originally Posted by allen2323

I agree in part with you. I would say the more accurate way to describe chicago heights is that chicago heights has a ghetto not that chicago heights is a ghetto.

Hmmmm........I wouldn't say that. I would say that Chicago Heights has a large ghetto, but there are alot of decent areas. You have to figure that most of the Eastside btw East End and State look like bomb hit it. Beacon Hills has always had a bad rep. The areas around Wilson Elementary and Washington Jr. High has always been shaky. The nicest part is the area north of Licoln highway, West of Eastend and and the area closer to 26th St. However, there are some nice areas south of Lincoln Hwy, but they are surrounded by a lot of not so nice areas.

People don't realize how big Da Heights is. Your talking about a city that streches from Western Ave to the west, State St to the east, Vollmer/Holbrook Rd to the North and 26th Street to the South (Not including a lot of unincorporated areas). That's a pretty big area!!

For the most part, Da Heights is big enough so that theres enough cushion btw the good areas and the bad areas to feel relatively safe. Plus there's enough privates schools out there that you can avoid the public ones. Although, there are a few decent public schools.

I wouldn't call it the best town in America though.

[linicx]

I think we can all agree to disagree and put this away.