Small-town Iowa girl seeks small town in Illinois (Chicago, DeKalb: estate, income)

[gardengeek]

Maybe a little small for what you're looking for, but I love North Utica, IL. It's bordering Starved Rock State Park, so you've got amazing scenery nearby, and it's near plenty of other small towns. But they've got an excellent little strip downtown with a cute little wine shop, something I never see in tiny towns like this, plus a bookshop/cafe, which is great for wasting entire afternoons. The locals are very friendly, we always make it a point to go into town when we go out to Starved Rock. I had the best french fries in the world in Utica as well, at Duffy's.

[Doug Bergren]

Hi STROMSSA-You may want to consider Mt. Carroll. My name is Doug Bergren, and am currently an alderman here. Mt. Carroll is a small town of slightly more than 1800 people, and our motto is "We take the time to care."
Mt. Carroll is located about 40 minutes southeast of Galena, 10 miles from the Mississippi River, and is the county seat of Carroll County. I don't know how slow you want your pace, but Carroll County just got its first traffic light, and hopefully, we can keep it that way. What does your husband do for a living?
Good jobs aren't that plentiful around here, but there seems to be an influx of retirees coming here and some artists. Real Estate isn't near as expensive here as Galena, but the property taxes are just a bit high. But that's the result of Illinois raising the mulitplier, not the fault of the local assessors. The school district just merged with 2 other towns and formed the West Carroll School District, so now the school district consists of Mt. Carroll, Savanna, and Thomson. We're trying to resurrect our brick streets (oddly, Galena took theirs out), and attempting to improve our downtown in maintianing its historic character. Where are you in Iowa? If you have any questions, please ask here, and I'll get back to you ASAP. You can check out our website www.mount-carroll.il.us Good luck in your quest.
Doug Bergren

Originally Posted by stromssa

Hi,
I grew up in a college town in Iowa of about 8,000 people, and now live in a small town of 4,000 people. At some point in our futures, my husband and I may consider relocating, and we were thinking of Illinois. We are in our 30s, married last year, no kids (yet). I am a writer and need "space" around me to feel at home, and yet I still like to be able to go to a coffee shop or downtown area now and then to interact with people. My husband is similiarly introverted.
I have family in the Chicagoland area (surburbs) near Sugar Grove, but I am not particularly interested in living in a suburb, with the pricey homes, commuting, etc. However, I am interested in any smaller towns that might have some downtown "life" to them and perhaps some cultural advantages (or would be near somewhere that would have cultural offerings).
I am not overly familiar with all there is in Illinois; my grandparents lived in Dixon, and while I have a fondness for it based mostly on nostalgia, I think it would be quite distant from any cultural events. Same for Oregon, Illinois, a place I have visited and have enjoyed, but don't know how I would feel living there...
I also really like Galena. My husband's parents live in Dubuque, so it would only be a short drive to see them. Plus, it's kind of an "artsy" town, and, as a writer, I think I would enjoy that..
These are just what I am familiar with, though. Any thoughts or opinions on a smaller town with character?
Thanks!

Hi STROMSSA

[Carey74]

You may want to consider Highland, Illinois.

Mike

[silverhaired51]

How about Pike County Illinois? I lived in Pittsfield,Ill. for a number of years. Graduated high school, got married, had my daughter there. It is a great small town.

You are close to Qunicy, Hannable, MO. (spelled it wrong). You would be about an hour from Springfield, about the same from St. Louis,MO. It is between the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers, has some of the prettiest countyside.

It is not that far from Iowa. I try and make it back about every other year. Still have alot of friends there.

[brightmidnight]

I agree with the suggestion of Highland, Illinois. Small-town atmosphere, great schools, and 30 minutes away from St. Louis with all its culture. St. Louis has so many free things for kids to do, it's amazing and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else (look up the City Museum-- there is nothing like it anywhere in the world!)

I disagree that St. Louis has more crime than Chicago-- I feel safe in St. Louis (avoiding 1 or 2 neighborhoods, of course) and I do not feel the same way in Chicago, where people approach me outside a restaurant asking for money or food or that sort of thing. The city of St. Louis itself has small borders by law, so when crime stats are taken into account, it seems to have a higher crime rate than someplace like Chicago, which is miles and miles wider. But it doesn't. Chicago has many worse neighborhoods and much worse crime.

Now that that's settled, I would not recommend Edwardsville or O'fallon, IL if you're truly looking for a "small town" if you mean that a small town has a pop. of 4-8,000. These towns are almost small cities and have populations of 100,000, I believe. Not a small-town feel.

A few more true small towns on the other side of Highland include Greenville and Vandalia-- you'll really get a small town feel living there, with nice housing prices and good schools, while still being so close to St. Louis and all its museums.

I don't know if you think the same way because of your family connections, but I would avoid suburbs in northern Illinois at all costs. It's all one big shopping mall, from what I've seen, and getting worse.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by brightmidnight

I agree with the suggestion of Highland, Illinois. Small-town atmosphere, great schools, and 30 minutes away from St. Louis with all its culture. St. Louis has so many free things for kids to do, it's amazing and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else (look up the City Museum-- there is nothing like it anywhere in the world!)

I disagree that St. Louis has more crime than Chicago-- I feel safe in St. Louis (avoiding 1 or 2 neighborhoods, of course) and I do not feel the same way in Chicago, where people approach me outside a restaurant asking for money or food or that sort of thing. The city of St. Louis itself has small borders by law, so when crime stats are taken into account, it seems to have a higher crime rate than someplace like Chicago, which is miles and miles wider. But it doesn't. Chicago has many worse neighborhoods and much worse crime.

No, St. Louis doesn't merely "seem" to have a higher crime rate than Chicago. It factually DOES have a higher crime rate than Chicago. MUCH higher. Of course Chicago has more overall crime as a raw number. That's because it has about nine times as many people. That's like saying Florida has more crime than Kansas. Well, duh, that's kind of obvious. But the crime RATE, which measures the incidents of crime crime PER CAPITA, is the far better indication of your chances of being a victim of crime than a raw number. And I'm sorry to report, as bad as the crime rate is in Chicago, it's much worse in St. Louis, by several times in almost all categories.

[brightmidnight]

Originally Posted by Drover

No, St. Louis doesn't merely "seem" to have a higher crime rate than Chicago. It factually DOES have a higher crime rate than Chicago. MUCH higher.

It DOES NOT have a higher crime rate.

The statistics are flawed; they compare actual city limits and populations within city limits. STL is limited by law in its city limits-- it can't expand and annex other cities or areas in like other cities regularly do (such as Clayton, Ladue, etc., which have very low crime rates.) It has remained the same size since those laws were enacted, unlike most big cities which annex the outlying (usually crime-free) suburbs in. A big example of this is Los Angeles, which is hundreds of square miles across and growing as it keeps annexing. St. Louis has city limits of 61 square miles compared to 234 for Chicago and 318 for Kansas City. The overall crime statistics are taken and averaged out by the square mile. St. Louis gets divided 61 times and Chicago gets divided 234 times. Now are you seriously going to tell me that STL is much more dangerous than Chicago? Chicago is much more dangerous, as is Kansas City and almost every other big city in America. If you avoid the one or two neighborhoods that are bad, you will be safer in St. Louis than almost anywhere. The area on Grand that is bad is not as bad as somewhere like Cabrini Green in Chicago, which would be its equivalent.

If you look at the top of the rankings, the ones that get ranked worst are the ones with small city limits like St. Louis and Camden, NJ. I got into a debate about this on another City Data forum once-- Greensboro, NC was considered one of the most unsafe cities in America on one of these lists. Greensboro is a nice town and you don't feel unsafe walking in it. But, it has small city limits and that put it above places like Chicago and Los Angeles in crime rates.

Chicago covers 234 square miles
Memphis covers 314 squre miles
Kansas City covers 318 square miles
Houston covers 602 squre miles

I've walked in downtown St. Louis my whole life and I never had a problem. One night spent walking around downtown Chicago to look at the Marshall Field's windows and I got approached threateningly 10 times in one night. The bad news in St. Louis is confined to one or two neighborhoods-- I have suburban Chicago friends who won't go to downtown Chi because of the muggings and I have never felt that way about St. Louis. I won't go into a certain neighborhood but I'm certainly not going to avoid the entire downtown.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...ty-crime_x.htm
"It's bogus," Slay said. "To suggest that St. Louis is more dangerous than Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Chicago — it just doesn't make any sense."
Slay also repeated a long-standing criticism of the ranking, which only looks at crime within St. Louis city limits. More than 1 million people live in suburbs outside the city and including them in the study would greatly dilute the overall crime rate, Slay said.

Gotta agree with the mayor on this one.

[Drover]

Sorry, but you don't get to say "the crime rate is actually lower" by hypothetically re-drawing the borders. As it stands, St. Louis proper has a much higher crime rate than Chicago proper. PERIOD. The statistics don't lie on this issue. If we were to play your game, we could also say, "well, Chicago's crime rate would be lower if it got to annex a bunch of suburbs all around it. More than 6 million people live in the suburbs outside the city and including them in the study would greatly dilute the overall crime rate." Well, Chicago doesn't get to do that either, and hasn't done so for decades. If you want to compare crime stats for the respective metropolitan areas, fine, let's do that. Then maybe St. Louis metro's crime rate is lower than the Chicago metro's crime rate. But I doubt it; I doubt either is higher or lower than the other by more than an insignificant margin.

Additionally, your anecdotes don't equal data. What the hell does "approached threateningly" even mean? Does that mean some scary-looking colored person walked toward you? If you were "approached threateningly" without anything actually happening to you, then just how "threatening" were these approaches?

I've not only visited Chicago, but lived here for YEARS without ever having a problem beyond having some bunglick key my car. But I've had that happen twice out in the suburbs too. If your friends won't come into Chicago because of all the muggings, then they're ninnies and they need to get a grip. Millions live here without ever getting mugged.

Speaking of which...

Robberies in Chicago, 2005: 551 per 100,000
Robberies in St. Louis, 2005: 851 per 100,000

Tell me again which city you're more scared to visit?

[JD.]

If you're looking to stay in Northern Illinois, I would recomend Stockton. Between Freeport and Galena, you have the option to travel to either one if you want to do any 'city' activities. It is a smaller town of about 2,000 people with nice tree lined streets and older homes. Very nice area with a very limited number of restaurants and shops. Not sure about housing costs but if your looking for a nice rural community near Galena, Freeport really isn't the nicest town I've ever seen, you might be interested in Stockton.

[jc1969]

I agree with an earlier post, Pittsfield Illinois is a wonderful small town.