Looking into Danville

[PaalRobes]

I wouldn't move to Danville either, everything being said here is true. There was an incident where a guy pulled up to the side of the road to park his car at the projects and when he stepped out of his car he was shot in the neck, during the channel 15 news interview one of the tenants sais she was from Chicago (one of the tenants from the projects in Chicago that was moved here by the state) and that it was worse here than Chicago! That has to tell you something right there. As for St. Joseph been ther many times and is a nice little town but it's in the TORNADO ALLEY! And more and more people are moving to this area due to easy access to RT74 to Champaign. I personally like a quite little town of about 6000 up north called Hoopeston, Great Schooling, Good Hospital, Medical Facilities, Pizza shops, drugs stores, 3 major car dealers, nice park wich they have the National Sweet Corn festival every year where people from all over the world participate in ( Sweet Heart Pageant which is a stepping stone to the Miss America Pageant). It's about 22 miles north of Danville( a straight shot on rt1) and takes around 25 minutes to commute. but as far as jobs in Hoopeston forget it, it's just a good town to raise kids. I was born and raised there until I was 18 then moved to California for 12yrs and had a daughter so we decided to move back to raise her and was the best decision we have ever made for our family and am presently living here.

[Chicago60614]

Danville is pretty small, but I hear about it much more than most small towns. It's usually due to the severity of the hard times that have fallen on the town, and how it has some of the cheapest housing in the country. This is mostly due to jobs leaving, and many houses being left empty. They have a hard time pulling anyone into town because of the employment situation, and there's a glut of houses.

[Tyler T]

I was just looking through this site and ran across this article. Hopefully you will see my reply. I have resided in rural Danville for my entire life, and believe me it isn't that bad. I cannot believe there are no "pro Danville statements." The link provided to the very run down house was posted because it was placed on Danville's demolition list. For the last couple of years Danville has been been working on cleaning up the town by demolishing condemed structures. In January of 2007 our rate freeze on our electricity expired and we now have current market price billing for electricity, which makes it alot higher. Our all electric 2200 sq ft home costs $450 to heat in the winter. We recently installed a wood burning furnace and that dropped our bill to less than $200 a month. Danville has some very nice homes in our area. If I were moving into this area I would look into homes in the Bismark, Oakwood, North West Danville areas. In the last five years a couple of our larger apartment complexes have opted into the gov. Sec. 8 housing program. This has definatly caused a spike in our crime rate, but I think that most would still consider this a very nice place to live. One of the main reasons Danville has been stated that it is "Stuck in the '60s" is because Danville was a booming industrial town. by the year 2000 Danville had lost almost all of its good paying factory jobs causing a downturn in our local economy that we are still trying to over come. Danville used to house General Motors, General Electric, Hyster, and many other factories that have been exported. Please feel free to ask me anything else about our community. BTW Kickapoo and Kennekuk parks are both GREAT parks to explore. You also mentioned our lake... be aware it is not HUGE but it is defenatly a nice way to spend an afternoon.

[rahuliyer]

I lived in Danville IL from 1979 to 1987. This is where I grew up. I was not born in Danville (I was born elsewhere in IL), and have since moved further away from IL. Here is my thoughts on Danville IL.

Danville IL has seen some hard times economically. The fact that its manufacturing base is contracting does not seem to help this.

Most likely, I would advise you to consider Champaign/Urbana IL. While the commute is roughly 35 minutes on I-74, it is a straight shot out of Champaign/Urbana IL.

Champaign/Urbana IL is better, and you have the benefit of UIUC at yours doorstep as far as school choices (high school and university), and the culture and arts scene.

[lleva99]

I am a life-long resident of the danville-area. It isn't near as bad as all these posts make it out to be. Granted, definately not the greatest place to live but I definately feel safe here. There have been lots of improvements in the last couple of years due to the work of our mayor. Still lots of work to be done but there are lots of nice homes and places to spend time. Kickapoo and Kennekuk are both beautiful and well-maintained. There are some good restaurants here Montana Mike's, Garfields, good ol' Red Lobster, Monical's to name a few. The mall leaves a lot to be desired but that's mostly due to poor management with WAY too high rent prices among other things. There are lots of nice little cities outside of Danville to look into. Bismarck, Catlin, Oakwood. I saw Hoopeston named a few times and I'd say no way to that, research wicca and witch craft and you'll definately find Hoopeston, IL. The drive from Danville to Champaign/Urbana is a pain. I work in C-U and it's a bad, bad drive between Danville and C/U during the winter. It takes more than two hands to count the accidents and cars off the road on any given winter day! So, if your hubby is working in Danville I'd stay close if you're worried about the drive. I'm soon to make the move closer to home as far as my job is concerned. I'd do more research if I were you, talk to more people who live in Danville instead of people who've heard things or traveled through it. It's really not that bad and if you want things to do there are lots of things outside of town that are still within reasonable driving distance.

[a2zmom]

The wiccans moved out of Hoopeston.

[camflht]

I was just talking to a pharmaceutical rep at our clinic yesterday (Oct. 28 ). She said she lives in Danville and wants to move out but could never get the value from her home they recently built. She is afraid to go to the store at night. Crime is being reported in the papers at about 50% of the rate that it is happening according to her. They don't want people to know how bad it is. The crime and safety issue has arisen since residents of Chicagos Cabrini Green were relocated to Danville Housing Authority (DHA). CHA was forced to demolish Cabrini Green by the federal govt. Look up Cabrini Green through google. She also said the remaining 2,500 people will be sent to a very small rural farming community near Danville. I don't remember the name of the town. Literature available on this project as stated all the positive benefits to Chicago ---Reduction in CRIME,,,, but they are not telling people what the program has done to Danville, Arora, East St. Louis and Gary IN where the 15,000 people were forced to relocate.

[Drover]

Again, this BS about people being "forced" to relocate -- where does this come from? Nobody is "forced" to relocate to anywhere unless they're a prison transfer or in the military; even the latter they have the choice of a less-than-honorable discharge if they refuse their redeployment. Public housing residents are not captives who can simply be ordered from one place to another.

[yogied]

I am trying to get some honest feedback on what type of place Danville really is. I am a newly single mother of two daughters, and was thinking about moving there. Is it rural? Is the crime rate ridiculously high? I don't suppose that there are too many places left where you can leave your doors unlocked, but should I be afraid to go grocery shopping? Please, someone proivde me with an well-informed, unbiased opinion on whether or not Danville would be a good place to move to. Thank you so much!

[Drover]

Originally Posted by yogied

I am trying to get some honest feedback on what type of place Danville really is. I am a newly single mother of two daughters, and was thinking about moving there. Is it rural? Is the crime rate ridiculously high? I don't suppose that there are too many places left where you can leave your doors unlocked, but should I be afraid to go grocery shopping? Please, someone proivde me with an well-informed, unbiased opinion on whether or not Danville would be a good place to move to. Thank you so much!

Is there some reason why you don't trust the 20-some responses extant in this thread? Re-framing the question is not going to change the basic answer which you don't seem to want to hear, but I'm going to say it again anyway: Danville is a dysfunctional, run-down pit.

My brother-in-law is a teacher in the area. The Danville school district recently offered him a 30% raise to move from his current school district to the Danville district. It also would have cut his commute time in half. He didn't even wait until the end of the day to turn down their offer.

These are the kind of people who are moving to Danville these days:

1) People from bad neighborhoods in Chicago who are trying to get their kids away from gangs and see Danville as a cheap alternative but end up bringing with them the same values they're running away from while their kids simply re-form those gangs in Danville;

2) People from bad neighborhoods in Chicago who want to be closer to their loved ones in prison.

If those are the kind of people you want as neighbors, Danville is the place for you. If not, consider other alternatives in the area such as Rantoul or even Urbana.