Safest Neighborhood in Champaign-Urbana,IL

[meatpuff]

Originally Posted by edykumar

Thanks.
I am planning to rent an apartment in the cross streets of Russelle Street & Park Ave, Champaign area .

Do you think it is a SAFE area?

Nearly all of Champaign-Urbana is a safe area, excluding a few large apartment complexes and pockets of the poorest areas of town. Russelle and Park is not in or near these problem areas.

You only asked about safety, but I would add these are some very pretty blocks of the city. Leafy streets, well-maintained middle-aged houses, middle class area. Almost all SFHs around there. Maybe the finest neighborhood bar in the C-U, Hubers, which also serves food, is a couple of blocks away. There's also a city park at that location. Daytime bus service to/from downtown Champaign, downtown Urbana, Parkland College and central UI campus is only a block away. I'd be delighted to live over there.

The houses get smaller and less nice as you go north towards the railroad tracks. I wouldn't walk around the tracks area at night only because it's desolate. The houses eventually get nicer and larger as you go south from there toward the country club.

You can't do much better in the city for safety for the price range you listed.

[edykumar]

Thanks

[DebJulCoh]

Originally Posted by meatpuff

Well, this ain't Chicago or New York so there isn't an Indian section of town exactly, but there are certainly many Indians living in the C-U connected with UI.

Ha, never hear of anything like car jackings, fortunately it's much quieter here than a big city. There are some quite poor (easily identified) parts of town where there are some shenanigans, but you'd probably never have any reason to go there. Also, people do get robbed from time to time, but usually while walking around alone in desolate areas in the middle of the night. Doing things like this raises your risk like any urban area. Fortunately, a great many of the assault, sexual assault and other statistics are just drunk students doing stupid stuff to other drunk students. Stay away from that scene and it won't involve you.

Many questions before I could make any kind of suggestion. Married/kids? Age? What part of town would you be working in? Looking to rent or buy? Looking for something more urban and walkable or more a quiet neighborhood on the edge of town?

If you're a grad student-type (I am), you will find lots of other Indian and other international grad students in the area around Clark-to-Stoughton and Second-to-Wright in Champaign. This is probably the largest concentration of Indians in town, although there are more in Urbana just east of the Engineering campus. The housing is cheap there. Before I would say this area is merely alright, but it's on the upswing, with the grocery store and high-rise apartment going up on the south end of this area (opening in weeks). This would be the only grocery store on campus and should bring a lot more foot traffic, convenience and excitement to the area. So there's that area you can look at to get started.

I'd need to know more to actually recommend an area to look at.

You said cheap rent. Don't know what you're used to, but if it's anyplace like Chicago you'll be pleased at how low the rents are by comparison. Even for very nice areas.

I recommend that you contact the Tenant Union and research the properties mentioned there. Apartmentratings.com is another godo source for information. I personally recommend Hardwick Apartments. They have great standings with the Tenant Union, and the apartments themselves are really nice. Happy hunting!