What's Up With People Moving to Chicago? (Lincoln: cheap apartments, rent)

[Manigault]

How often does the forum get the request: "Since I've been offered a job in Chicago, please suggest a nice neighborhood of reasonable rents, close to transportation and nightlife, with diversity and a very low crime rate."

1. The reason you got a job here is because it is a major financial and legal center in a highly populated urban environment. There are going to be tradeoffs.

2. Living in a small town next to a major city and living in a small town surrounded by farms are two different things. Don't expect them to resemble each other.

3. There are going to be tradeoffs in various neighborhoods in urban areas. Some have great nightlife. Some have a lot of cheap apartments. Some have orthodox synagogues in walking distance. Neighborhoods are going to have strengths and weaknesses.

4. There are people who are living (and perhaps thriving) in areas of the city in which you would never consider living. These folks are sane, they may also have never been crime victims. They just have different experiences with the city and different requirements than you.

5. There are only few areas in the city in which you can live and still take public transportation to the Loop or Hyde Park in less than 45". Deal with that immutable fact and choose a neighborhood accordingly.

6. There is no major urbanized area in Westernized democracies in which you can traipse around half in the bag on a weekend after 1 am and be totally safe from muggers. Conform your conduct to your environment and learn from folks who already reside in your area.

7. The Chicago area has millions of denizens and a minority of these individuals wish you harm and want to take your possessions. Guard yourself and what you own accordingly.

8. Chicago is an immigrant town and has pockets of individuals with various ethnicities and places of origin. This is not an oddity nor is there de facto segregation in Chicago. If you want to foster diversity visit friends in all areas of the city.

[SDtoChicago]

Enough with your blind contempt towards anyone who wishes to live on the North Side. We get it...so shut up!

[marothisu]

Are you saying this statement isn't possible? "Since I've been offered a job in Chicago, please suggest a nice neighborhood of reasonable rents, close to transportation and nightlife, with diversity and a very low crime rate."

If so then I disagree. It depends on what your idea of reasonable rents is.

[Jandur]

Point. Looking for one...

[Manigault]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Are you saying this statement isn't possible? "Since I've been offered a job in Chicago, please suggest a nice neighborhood of reasonable rents, close to transportation and nightlife, with diversity and a very low crime rate."

If so then I disagree. It depends on what your idea of reasonable rents is.

I don't think it is impossible -- it just seems to be unlikely. One neighborhood is not going to fit everyone's stated needs.

[knitgirl]

Originally Posted by Manigault

How often does the forum get the request: "Since I've been offered a job in Chicago, please suggest a nice neighborhood of reasonable rents, close to transportation and nightlife, with diversity and a very low crime rate."

1. The reason you got a job here is because it is a major financial and legal center in a highly populated urban environment. There are going to be tradeoffs.

2. Living in a small town next to a major city and living in a small town surrounded by farms are two different things. Don't expect them to resemble each other.

3. There are going to be tradeoffs in various neighborhoods in urban areas. Some have great nightlife. Some have a lot of cheap apartments. Some have orthodox synagogues in walking distance. Neighborhoods are going to have strengths and weaknesses.

4. There are people who are living (and perhaps thriving) in areas of the city in which you would never consider living. These folks are sane, they may also have never been crime victims. They just have different experiences with the city and different requirements than you.

5. There are only few areas in the city in which you can live and still take public transportation to the Loop or Hyde Park in less than 45". Deal with that immutable fact and choose a neighborhood accordingly.

6. There is no major urbanized area in Westernized democracies in which you can traipse around half in the bag on a weekend after 1 am and be totally safe from muggers. Conform your conduct to your environment and learn from folks who already reside in your area.

7. The Chicago area has millions of denizens and a minority of these individuals wish you harm and want to take your possessions. Guard yourself and what you own accordingly.

8. Chicago is an immigrant town and has pockets of individuals with various ethnicities and places of origin. This is not an oddity nor is there de facto segregation in Chicago. If you want to foster diversity visit friends in all areas of the city.

AMEN!! Especially the bit about nightlife and very low crime. Muggers are at least smart enough to know that drunks staggering out of bars after midnight are pretty easy marks. People out to have a good time at night might be carrying a lot of cash.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Manigault

I don't think it is impossible -- it just seems to be unlikely. One neighborhood is not going to fit everyone's stated needs.

It depends on what they want after that. If all they say is "Since I've been offered a job in Chicago, please suggest a nice neighborhood of reasonable rents, close to transportation and nightlife, with diversity and a very low crime rate." THAT IS COMPLETELY POSSIBLE.

It becomes less when you start requiring VERY SPECIFIC restaurants, eateries, grocery stores, etc in there. But a place with reasonable rent (for someone with a decent job), nightlife, close to transit, low crime rate and diversity ...there are many areas with that in the city.

The diversity thing is less, but you'd think by reading on here that this city is completely segregated. Even in the Gold Coast where I am, I have a lot of hispanic, black, and asian neighbors in my building alone, and it's the same thing even at my grocery store with who goes there. Reading on here though you'd think every single person is white which is completely untrue. Yeah, it's not 25%, 25%, etc but it's not entirely segregated (FYI the Near North Side's population is 80,484 and 10.85% is black and 10.11% Asian which together is 17,000 people. Around 5% is hispanic too so that's another 4,000 people. Reading on here though, you'd think there's like 500 non white people in these neighborhoods.


The thing about crime too. Yeah there's some muggings and flash mobs even downtown, but when you look at the number of people who come downtown and also live, you realize the crime rate is extremely low. Crime rate is measured against number of residents, but an area like downtown/near north is different because of how many tourists and people going out to eat there are. If you took the average daily population which includes visitors and calculated the crime rate that way, it would be even less and that goes for a lot of neighborhoods like Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and Wicker Park which all have a lot of nightlife.

[Manigault]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It becomes less when you start requiring VERY SPECIFIC restaurants, eateries, grocery stores, etc in there.

... and when a 45" commute on rapid trans is the max.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Manigault

... and when a 45" commute on rapid trans is the max.

Not really. Again, it depends on what "Reasonable Rent" means. I think anything under $1400/month for a 1 bedroom is reasonable. I could live in a lot of places for that like Lincoln Park or Wicker Park, which is definitely less than 45 minutes even at rush hour, to the Loop.

If you start getting into reasonable rent being under $600/month, then you have more of a point.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Jandur

Point. Looking for one...

I actually thought they were all good points, except that I disagree quite strongly with the statement about there being no de facto segregation here.