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Since posting my last thread I started looking at areas along the red line east of western. I'm guessing I could possibly enjoy these areas more since I would be closer to students (Loyola). What areas would you suggest? I've found some places in Edgewater, Rogers Park, Uptown and Andersonville. How is Rogers park safety? Evanston? My only worry is walking from the train home at night. Can anyone tell me what you pay for utilities in a two bed apartment in Chicago? My budget is $1000 a month two bed near train. I'm going to Le Cordon Bleu. I was originally looking at Old Irving. I have looked at Logan Square but can't really find much in my price range. I was also told I should live near the red or brown line instead of the blue.
Student to student- look in Lincoln Park. It's a fantastic transitional neighborhood for someone new to the city. The amount of space to cost ratio isn't that great but you're paying for safety, and a beautifully landscaped and maintained neighborhood. Easy access to the brown line (aka the clean line) make transit a breeze. The place is crawling with DePaul students and yuppies. It's a great place. If you can't make that neighborhood work look in Lakeview. It's another great neighborhood in a great location. Avoid Rogers Park, Uptown, and even Edgewater gets a bit dicey (of course all these neighborhoods have nice parts as well). Evanston? It's a suburb and quite an affluent one at that. It doesn't really have nightlife. Stick to the city.
I also always prefer to be East of the expressway, I love the lakefront.
I can not afford to live in Lincoln Park and haven't found anything in Lakeview. Being by the lake is not something I care about and I'm not looking to hang out with yuppies at all. If money was not an issue I would want to live in the Wicker Park, Logan Square, Bucktown area. I have a feeling some people might have different standards as to whats a safe neighborhood and what is not. I live in Danville Illinois we are 82 on the list for 100 most dangerous place to live on Illinois and Chicago is 83 (so I read on the internet today) so Chicago is safer than where I live now. Obviously the places I mentioned along the red line are not the best places in the city but I can't afford much and have a budget I have to stick to. All I really need right now is a decent place close to a train and I would like to be safe. I know I wont be as safe as I would in Lincoln Park.
I can not afford to live in Lincoln Park and haven't found anything in Lakeview. Being by the lake is not something I care about and I'm not looking to hang out with yuppies at all. If money was not an issue I would want to live in the Wicker Park, Logan Square, Bucktown area. I have a feeling some people might have different standards as to whats a safe neighborhood and what is not. I live in Danville Illinois we are 82 on the list for 100 most dangerous place to live on Illinois and Chicago is 83 (so I read on the internet today) so Chicago is safer than where I live now. Obviously the places I mentioned along the red line are not the best places in the city but I can't afford much and have a budget I have to stick to. All I really need right now is a decent place close to a train and I would like to be safe. I know I wont be as safe as I would in Lincoln Park.
Logan Square..money not an issue? There's cheap places in Logan Square. I know people whose share of rent is less than $500/month there..
And yeah, I wouldn't pay attention to rankings. It depends on where you are in Chicago. There are real safe areas of Chicago, but there's real dangerous ones that at times can be just as deadly to people as Afghanistan is for American soldiers. Danville is too small to have any sort of real complete urban system.
While I respect some of the organizations that gather crime statisics and know there are many places that are not particularly urban where crime is an issue I would caution that the incidence of crimes that can be quite devastating is almost unquestionably higher in Chicago. Those "rankings" have to taken with the context that comes from awareness that there are spots in Chicago that are statistically more violent than Afghanistan and others that are so sleepily free from crime that they are for all intents part of the suburban lifestyle...
When it comes an young student moving to Chicago the kinds of crimes that go into rankings are very important. While i don't doubt that some rural areas have "Breaking Bad" type crazed meth cookers blasting away at everything that is probably not the part of town a person with a future/ plan from a downstste area is living in. In contrast the easy access that criminals in Chicago have to those with stuff they want leads to a whole different kind of crime problem. A property crime like car theft or apartment burglary can wipe out the ability of someone on a tight budget to continue to live on their own. Violent crimes against strangers are not particularly common in Chicago but when a mugging can result in life threatening injuries to say nothing of rape or assault you really have to consider what happens when you place yourself into a situation where you can become a victim...
The day-to-day hassle of having to deal with bums covered in urine or fecal matter is becoming rarer in most parts of Chicago but the numbness that comes from learning to tune out their often aggressive pan handling leads to a sort of acceptance of other bad guys that may be violent -- the predators know this and they use this ability to blend into the background of bums and beggars -- their victims often are not those newly arrived in Chicago but those who think they've been around long enough to have some "streets smarts"...
I would also caution that living in an area where it is unlikely that you will connect with others with whom you share intersts in common make it easier for you to become a victim / generally feel isolated -- when no one "has your back" (even drinking buddies that are only old enough for a coffee or fruit smoothie will notice when a regular "bar fly" needs a pal to walk home with 'em or advise others of unreported local crimes...) the odds of becoming a victim even in relatively "safe" areas increases.
My advice to new arrivals to Chicago is thus very simple -- get the smallest place you can tolerate in the best neighborhood you can afford. Take advantage of the fact that some studio or efficiency is supposed to feel confining and get out to the local entertainment spots and eating establishments. Don't live in a disconnected bubble. Check-in as often as possible with neighbors and become a "regular" at local establishments. Take advantage of comfy couches and free wifi at businesses that encourage a social atmosphere.
Logan Square..money not an issue? There's cheap places in Logan Square. I know people whose share of rent is less than $500/month there...
The issue with Logan Square is that her school is right near the Chicago stop of the Brown Line and it's kind of a PITA to get there from the NW branch of the Blue Line. I guess the overall commute time from Logan Square could be pretty tolerable; before she was looking up in Irving Park and IMO that would push the boundaries of "suck" commute.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellax94
Since posting my last thread I started looking at areas along the red line east of western. I'm guessing I could possibly enjoy these areas more since I would be closer to students (Loyola). What areas would you suggest? I've found some places in Edgewater, Rogers Park, Uptown and Andersonville. How is Rogers park safety? Evanston? My only worry is walking from the train home at night. Can anyone tell me what you pay for utilities in a two bed apartment in Chicago? My budget is $1000 a month two bed near train. I'm going to Le Cordon Bleu. I was originally looking at Old Irving. I have looked at Logan Square but can't really find much in my price range. I was also told I should live near the red or brown line instead of the blue.
First of all, congratulations on getting out of Danville. My BIL is a math teacher in the area. The Danville school district offered him a $12,000 raise to teach in their district, and it would have cut his commute time in half. He turned them down.
Anyway, you've already got the answers you're looking for about Edgewater in your other thread. Andersonville is a sub-section of Edgewater, situated in the southwest corner of it. Andersonville is the safest and generally most desirable part of Edgewater.
Rogers Park is a mixed bag. You can have gangbangers, students, and yuppies making six figures all living on the same block. Most of the crime seems to happen around certain CTA stations; Morse/Jarvis/etc. While it's not terrible... if I were a young female who frequently needed to use the L at night, I'd consider other options first.
Uptown is an even more bizarre admixture than Rogers Park. The epicenter of Uptown is the Wilson/Broadway intersection, near which you'll find a cluster of night club/concert venues, methadone clinics, martini bars, mental health facilities, sushi restaurants, flophouses, gangbangers, yuppies, artists, students, and just plain crazy people rubbing elbows. The "crazy/druggie/gang-y" aspect dissipates pretty rapidly once you get a couple blocks away from Wilson/Broadway. Quality-of-life issues would inspire me to not live within a 2- to 3-block radius of that intersection. The rest of Uptown is fine.
While I respect some of the organizations that gather crime statisics and know there are many places that are not particularly urban where crime is an issue I would caution that the incidence of crimes that can be quite devastating is almost unquestionably higher in Chicago. Those "rankings" have to taken with the context that comes from awareness that there are spots in Chicago that are statistically more violent than Afghanistan and others that are so sleepily free from crime that they are for all intents part of the suburban lifestyle...
...
I know you think you're being "realistic" and whatnot, Chet, but I think you're off base.
Background: I'll be 40 next year. I grew up in an impoverished rural town of 560 people. I've lived in Chicago for most of the past 17 years. While here at various times I've rented a room in Rogers Park, I've lived in the staff areas of a halfway house for recovering addicts, I've lived in Ravenswood, River North, Lakeview, the Gold Coast and (for all intents and purposes) the edge of Logan Square/Avondale.
I'm a little bigger than average and I look gruff when I'm walking around, so I'm not one who gets hassled much. I will admit that that influences how "safe" an area feels to *me* personally.
With that background out of the way, I've only personally known one person who's been murdered, and it was one of my high school teachers in that town of 560.
Unrelated to that, shortly after I graduated (class size: 33) one of my high school classmates went to prison for murdering someone in a drug deal gone bad.
Another classmate went to prison for armed robbery a year after that.
Another schoolmate went to a resort town with some other friends of mine and when they came back, our mutual friends said he'd gotten into a fight with someone and beaten them so badly that they pulled him away only after "he kicked him in the ribs so many times we stopped hearing bones break." Direct quote. The guy who said that was the son of an FBI agent who never, ever lied about anything, no matter how amazing the story. His sister really did get hit by lightening. His father really was an FBI agent who had played for the (then) Baltimore Colts in the 70s. He really did know famous movie agents in Hollywood and stay at their homes when he visited LA. His family really did have a collection of fully automatic weapons. And many others, every one validated. So when he said the guys ribs were turned to mush, I believe him.
Even in the small town, places were burglarized. I lived next door to a house that got raided by the DEA because a drug dealer lived there - the DEA doesn't raid guys selling a little pot on the side.
The Federal Marshals laid seige to apartments two buildings over from mine because my friend's father was a fugitive and had dropped by to see his sons. The father, somehow, escaped.
The house next to that had a police officer from a neighboring town who was arrested at home one day for raping his daughter.
There were muggings in the town at times. There were drug operations in the remote areas outside of town. There were other issues, too.
All of that was in a rural town of 560 people, 7 miles from the nearest larger town.
If you have some romantic ideal that small town life is never as hard as big city life, let me be the first to tell you that while, yes, there are hard areas in Chicago, small towns aren't all white picket fences, apple pie and parents filled with loving-kindness. I grew up with great parents and a strong support system, which is why my brothers and I turned out fine, productive members of society. But poverty anywhere corrupts culture and society, causing some portion of people to turn into violent, dangerous individuals. It doesn't take a city to do that and from what I hear, Danville is pretty damn rough.
And, by the way, the statistics about Chicago being more violent than Afghanistan are absurdly twisted and massaged. The real stats can not be realistically compared and anyone saying they can be, much less should be, has a political lie to sell you.
Parts of Chicago can be quite dangerous.
Most of Chicago is pretty safe if you don't do dumb things (like walking down dark alleys).
I am not at all from a small town with corn fields and meth addicts. My town is very urban and more than half our crime probably is gang related. I'm not from a population of 500 small town either. Our population is 38,000.
With that background out of the way, I've only personally known one person who's been murdered, and it was one of my high school teachers in that town of 560.
Unrelated to that, shortly after I graduated (class size: 33) one of my high school classmates went to prison for murdering someone in a drug deal gone bad.
To put that into perspective, these would have to be the only two murders in your hometown over a period of 23 1/2 years for the homicide rate to be as low as Chicago's was in 2010 (15.2 per 100,000).
If they make it 56 years without another homicide they'll reach NYC's rate (6.4 per 100,000), and 115 years they'll reach Seattle's rate (3.1 per 100,000).
And I bet many of the people who live there think big cities are too dangerous.
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