Recommend a liberal city less expensive than Chicago? (Aurora, Naperville: sales, insurance)

[mattywo85]

If your looking to stay within the Chicago area I'd recommend:
Schaumburg, Skokie, Addison, Naperville, Plainfield, Bolingbrook, Joliet, Aurora. Theres more but I don't want to list them all.

Stay Away from:
Cicero, Chicago Heights and that area

Central Illinois:
Bloomington-Normal, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana

I would advise aganist Southern Illinois(Edwardsville/Carbondale) because they have a Southern feel and are run down college towns.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by Paxtonian

Liberal Cities = Expensive Cities? Interesting!

In these places are many entitlement programs to pay for through high taxes and high property costs to make libs feel like they are solving problems; but in reality they are making things worse.

High levels of corruption and loads of friends and family on the city payroll that do little to no work have to be paid for also.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

St. Louis is an interesting thought. Generally St. Louis and Kansas City vote Democratic and the rest of the state votes Republican (usually). You may find more Democrats in the college cities (Columbia, Cape Girardeau, Springfield, Rolla), but not much. Springfield, MO is interesting, it has a few colleges and a couple churches headquartered there, as well as Bass Pro Shops.

Not sure how blue Chicago is, but St. Louis City and maybe the inner-ring suburbs are blue, Kansas City is blue, and the state overall is purple. When elections roll around you can't always tell how Missouri will turn out, since the Democratic urban population and the Republican suburban/rural seem to balance out. Missouri has picked the president for the majority of elections the last 100 years.

I don't live in St. Louis. I only get to visit a few times a year (I live 3 hours away). But what I read online and what I have seen it seems to be a good city. Some rough areas, as every city has. But St. Louis seems to be diverse and flavorful. And, like Chicago I'm sure, St. Louis has different neighborhoods that have different characteristics, as well as different pros and cons. I have heard Edwardsville is pretty nice, depending on how big of a town you want.

I don't really think St. Louis is as dangerous as portrayed online. But it's hard to compare it to Chicago because Illinois compiles crime stats differently. So when listing most dangerous cities, Chicago is usually omitted. St. Louis City is also a small part of the metro area, meaning the area calculated for crime is often the very urban area. Urban areas always have more crime than suburbs. I think if you can handle a city as big as Chicago you'll be fine in St. Louis. If you're smart and don't store valuables in plain site in your car, walk around with money falling out of your pockets, or do drugs, you'll probably be okay. A car break-in is certainly possible, though. I would gauge the risk of getting randomly shot at very low.

If you are interested in St. Louis, maybe see what advertising options are open. St. Louis will probably be cheaper to live in than Chicago. Even downtown, $600/month for a 1 BR is certainly doable. It's probably doable in most areas of the city.
st louis, MO apts/housing for rent classifieds - craigslist
If you just want to browse St. Louis homes for sale, you could try here also. Under area click "St. Louis City"
Coldwell Banker Gundaker -- Your site for St. Louis Real Estate
St. Louis City is not part of St. Louis County. STL City is an independent Missouri city. You don't have to use the cbgundaker site, but it's just the one I'm most familiar with. If you see a house you like (even just browsing) you can go to Google Maps and type in the address of the house. Street View might have it, it just depends.

Illinois suburbs are certainly an option. Usually property costs less. Taxes, I've heard, may be more. And gas costs more. Overall, I don't think it makes a lot of difference.

St. Louis doesn't have NBA, but it does have MLB, NHL, NFL, and hopefully in a few years, MLS. And you could still see the Cubs play a couple times a year if you can afford tickets. Blues and Blackhawks also have a rivalry, though maybe not what it used to be.

Hope that was helpful.

[Central Illinois 1]

Downstate, I would recommend Champaign, Edwardsville, or maybe Springfield. However, none of these cities are overly-liberal.Champaign and Springfield are both their own small metro areas with pockets of liberalism. Edwardsville is a college town and bedroom community of St. Louis. If I was going to make a move in Illinois (outside of the Chicago area) that is where I would go. But if you really want progressive, Madison (WI) is your place.

[linicx]

Peoria is progressive, too, from its upscale shopping to downtown jazz, a univeristy, college and a whole lot more including national acts and a wide variety of events in the metro area. Peoria also has a top-rated park system that offerrs everything from a bandshell and summer theater to a botanica and ball diamonds. There is plenty to do, see and investigate in this area. .

[STLCardsBlues1989]

And the Rivermen.

[Mamama Mia]

I haven't read all of the posts. But in the Chicago area, I would say Oak Park-River Forest or Evanston.
And if you can consider Wisconsin, Madison would fit the bill.

[Drover]

In way are Oak Park, River Forest and Evanston less expensive than Chicago? They're really all just part of the same expensive continuum.

[BlueSimple]

I lived for a time in Madison. It has some really great aspects to it, but I don't know how 'progressive' it really is, though 'progressive' may also be hard to define.

It has a huge and great school in UW-Madison and a small and not so great private college in Edgewood College and some nice civic aspects but that's about it.

College kids that simply do not bathe and have dread locks and try to get you to fill out questionnaires all the time is not my definition of progressive. It is an open city that welcomes pretty much everyone it seems, that in itself is progressive but I don't know of any specific details after that.

I am not a hardcore right winger, I am not a hardcore anything, but I was incredibly disallusioned by this town. It seems like it's selling something that isn't really there.

[AnonymousCoward]

I'd add a vote for Madison, Wisconsin, but it is certainly expensive for its size, and wages tend to lag behind those in the Chicago area which makes the cost of living effectively the same as Chicago. Certainly cities like Springfield and Champaign lean further left than the rural areas that surround it, but, outside of the area near the U of I campus, they are by no means progressive or activist liberal areas. Bloomington feels like a company town and is dominated by State Farm. Peoria is an old industrial town, and seems far from being progressive. St. Louis seems to come a bit closer than any of the other examples given, but it too seems more liberal democrat than progressive/activist liberal.

Progressive areas seem to be more expensive than most, but I'm not sure if progressive politics make things more expensive, or if having a bunch of overeducated people attracts businesses despite the politics. In any case, I would image that some north side Chicago neighborhoods, Madison, Ann Arbor, Boulder, and other such places will always be expensive places to live.