Champaign or Joliet? (Chicago, Naperville, Rock Island: apartments, townhomes, neighborhoods)

[KSBN77]

Hi everyone. I am currently living in Chicago, but I would like to be a veterinary vetnician and the only schools close are in Joliet and champaign.

I will have to relocate to one of the above, but I would like to know which one is safer. I would be living alone and i'm a young female who scares easily. My main concern is safety. I've done as much research as I can on the two areas and i've been getting mixed messages.

The school in Joliet would be Joliet Junior College and Parklan College in Champaign. I would like to live close to the schools but I don't know how the neighborhoods are around there.

Any help would be great! Thanks!

[Switch625]

The neighborhoods around Parkland College are very good. Townhomes and apartments, most of which are very new. Even the ones that aren't new aren't all that old. The residents are either students or middle class types and there is very little trouble. To the west of the Parkland area are new subdivisions. Some are brand new. That area trends toward the upscale. East of Parkland is lots of park land (get it?). South of Parkland is the housing I was talking about, the townhomes and apartments. North of Parkland there isn't much of anything.

Parkland is served regularly by buses, so getting somewhere is easy without a car.

[Paxtonian]

You can live anywhere in Champaign-Urbana and easily get to Parkland on the bus. How close do you want to be to the college? Housing in Rantoul is inexpensive, but you'd need a car for the 15 mile commute. Rantoul has a sort of interesting reputation, the locals swear it's a bit of the inner city plunked down onto the Prairie, though on the whole, it's about as safe as Champaign-Urbana.

[KSBN77]

thanks. I was planning on living close because I don't have a car. I don't plan on getting a car either because I will only live there during school and go back to Chicago in the summer. I really don't have use for a car in chicago cause i'm not rich

Thanks for all the help!
Anyone else know about joliet? it's closer to Chicago so I was thinking about that place too.

[Switch625]

Train service runs between Union Station in Chicago and Champaign. If you live anywhere in Champaign or Urbana you can get wherever you need to go by bus. The central hub of the bus system is the Amtrak station. You don't have any need for a car whatsoever if you live in the city.

[Steve-o]

Joliet can be real shady in parts of town, real glorious in others. The newer northwestern developments are actually really nice and youre a hop, skip and a jump away from Naperville and Plainfield which offer even more. A short 35 minute train ride and you can be in Chicago. If you dont have a car, Joliet isnt a great place to live, nor any suburb for that matter.

[KSBN77]

So is the part around the college in Joliet nice? Would it be possible to live in Chicago and go to school in Joliet? That would be amazing because I wouldn't have to move.

[prairiestate]

Originally Posted by KSBN77

So is the part around the college in Joliet nice? Would it be possible to live in Chicago and go to school in Joliet? That would be amazing because I wouldn't have to move.

Absolutely. Just take the Metra Rock Island line to Joliet, then the Pace bus to school. It would be a long trip, but fairly easy. And yes, the area around the college is quite nice.

[prairiestate]

http://metrarail.com/Sched/ri/ri.shtml

http://www.pacebus.com/sub/schedules/search_results.asp (broken link)

[prairiestate]

Sorry, that pace bus link doesn't work. Try these.

http://www.pacebus.com/pdf/schedules/501sched.pdf

http://www.pacebus.com/pdf/maps/501map.pdf