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Old 10-04-2013, 02:20 AM
 
26 posts, read 85,991 times
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I grew up in a midwestern town of 20,000. Im going to college in a town alittle bigger but still small. I want to move to chicago after graduation because its not that far from my hometown and its seems like a fun city to live in but im from a typical small town whare people talk to you in public. what im asking is this ,

1 Is chicago really as dangerous as its made out to be?

2 What kinds of things will be shocking at first?

3 How can I adjust to the city?
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Old 10-04-2013, 04:03 AM
 
Location: Upper West Side, Manhattan, NYC
15,331 posts, read 23,757,300 times
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I'm going to answer the questions about adjustment first and stuff. First of all, come and visit and see for yourself. In your case, I think it would be semi frivolous to move to a big city when you've never even been to one. In a sense, I think that would be pretty overwhelming. I didn't do this or anything, but I can only imagine.

SO there is that, and really the adjustment in some areas will come with the number of people, the density of people living in some areas, navigating a public transit system perhaps, probably learning to walk in some areas to everything instead of relying on a car, learning street navigation talk (i.e. "meet me at the intersection of ____."), neighborhood talk, which areas to stay away from and to recognize it just based on street names, and stuff like that. Really though there are definitely areas of town where it's big city feeling and believe it or not, there's areas of town that if I blind folded you and took you there, you'd think you were in the suburb, not in the middle of Chicago.


As far as the dangerous thing goes: Overall, no. There's many extremely safe areas of town, but there's also very dangerous areas of town. However, this is how a lot of big cities are. There's just areas you don't go to or if you do, know what the hell you're doing. In Chicago, just like LA and NYC, these areas are segregated from the good areas. Hate to say it for some people, but it's the type of thing where if you have at least an OK job, you'd probably never find yourself in the bad areas or very close (minus a few - but I wouldn't consider these areas BAD you may find yourself close to). Not saying there's not good stuff in some bad neighborhoods - because there actually is - but you could live your entire big city life without ever stepping food in a bad area and still live it to the fullest.

There's over 1 million people in Chicago living in an area with the homicide rate of Seattle, which is extremely low, and then there's another 900,000 people living in an area with a homicide rate of St. Louis, which is very high. The 800,000 other people live in an area that's probably more like LA.

As much **** as Chicago gets, it's actually somewhere like 15th highest in homicide rate which is what matters when talking about homicides. You can't compare the raw counts of a city of 800,000 to one of 2.7 million. It's basic statistics and math, so you have to rely on rates to see how many people per 100,000 get X happened to them. If you examine the statistics and rank them, you'll realize for other violent crime stats Chicago is even lower. This isn't to say that Chicago can't be dangerous - oh it can be. Just saying that statistically it's actually not as bad as people think and this is because there's many safe or relatively safe areas of town that really tame town the really ****ty crime areas in the grand scheme of stats.
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Old 10-04-2013, 06:05 AM
 
7,101 posts, read 8,871,972 times
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Visiting first is good advice.

As far as safety goes, Chicago requires "street smarts"! Common sense goes a long way in the city. Little things like not counting your money in public, staying engaged with your surroundings and who's around you, don't roam around the city intoxicated. Most important, know where you are at all times!!!

Chicago is a huge city. So much to do and so much can happen. For my first 2.5 years in the city I kept to only certain areas (Hyde Park, downtown and a few other areas). It wasn't until after that I was comfortable exploring all of the city. That is something many natives don't do.

Chicago in many ways has a small town mentality. Many have "not left the block" they grew up on. They are still upholding traditions they where born into and can't let go.

I generally don't hold conversations with strangers with the exception of giving directions. So many are about nonsense who I prefer not to engage with. In that sense I'm a real snob. When I meet people its like "let's get to the point, what are you about" otherwise let's keep it moving. (I'm still trying to figure out if that is my age or Chicago rubbing off on me).

When I moved here from Memphis, I would have small conversations about nothing with strangers. Nothing bad ever came from that. Actually, I met a lot of people that way. After 5 years I find that I'm on a mission professionally and don't have as much time for social chatter nor do I need a social life because I'm established in the city.

I hope this gives you a snap shot of Chicago and how us transplants change. The best advice would be to visit. The city isn't for everyone.
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Old 10-04-2013, 08:28 AM
 
Location: River North, Chicago, Illinois
4,620 posts, read 8,113,751 times
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I grew up in a town of 560 people. I went to college in a town a whole ten times that size. Then I moved to Chicago.

What surprised me the most is how Chicago is really more like hundreds of small towns piled on top of one another. You pick a neighborhood and, just like in a small town, you start to recognize faces and (if you want to) can often get to know some of your neighbors. You get to know the local shopkeepers (again, if you want to). Where people choose to live is heavily influenced by their jobs, too, so don't be surprised if you even see some of your neighborhood people near your job, or that some of your coworkers live near you. It doesn't always happen that way, but it happens more than random chance would dictate.

I suggest embracing the city on its own terms as part of your adjustment. Don't try to live in Chicago the same way you'd live in your small town. Take some time to learn the city's history and how transit works, and allocate some "exploration" time to familiarize yourself not only with whatever neighborhood you land, but the rest of the city, too.

Finally, adapt to the city's culture but don't change your core beliefs just because you moved to Chicago. New experiences will change how you think over time, but there's no need to rush out and pre-change until it naturally happens. For example, if you're an open, friendly person, stay an open, friendly person. You may want to develop a thicker skin to deal with the people who aren't open and friendly, but there is no reason you can't be open and friendly here if that's your natural personality.
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Old 10-04-2013, 08:40 AM
 
Location: Oak Park, IL
5,523 posts, read 13,885,386 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias View Post
I grew up in a town of 560 people. I went to college in a town a whole ten times that size. Then I moved to Chicago.

What surprised me the most is how Chicago is really more like hundreds of small towns piled on top of one another. You pick a neighborhood and, just like in a small town, you start to recognize faces and (if you want to) can often get to know some of your neighbors. You get to know the local shopkeepers (again, if you want to). Where people choose to live is heavily influenced by their jobs, too, so don't be surprised if you even see some of your neighborhood people near your job, or that some of your coworkers live near you. It doesn't always happen that way, but it happens more than random chance would dictate.

I suggest embracing the city on its own terms as part of your adjustment. Don't try to live in Chicago the same way you'd live in your small town. Take some time to learn the city's history and how transit works, and allocate some "exploration" time to familiarize yourself not only with whatever neighborhood you land, but the rest of the city, too.

Finally, adapt to the city's culture but don't change your core beliefs just because you moved to Chicago. New experiences will change how you think over time, but there's no need to rush out and pre-change until it naturally happens. For example, if you're an open, friendly person, stay an open, friendly person. You may want to develop a thicker skin to deal with the people who aren't open and friendly, but there is no reason you can't be open and friendly here if that's your natural personality.
Excellent advice! Learn about your neighborhood, and learn about downtown. Once you feel comfortable with that, you can try branching out and explore other neighborhoods. I've lived here for 16 years and there still are parts of the city I've yet to explore.
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Old 10-04-2013, 09:22 AM
 
11,289 posts, read 26,057,256 times
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I know multiple farmer's daughters from Iowa who moved to Chicago (lived with two of them) and they didn't even bat an eyelash. It's fine. It's more like 1,000 towns piled into one.

Are you uneducated in a streetgang selling drugs and expecting to move to an extremely violent neighborhood? If not your chances of being involved in any sort of crime are very low. The whole "Chicago = crazy violence" thing has really been fed by the media because Obama is president.
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Old 10-04-2013, 01:34 PM
 
Location: USA
5,738 posts, read 5,409,066 times
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1.) No. Due to geographical segregation you're not going to accidentally end up somewhere bad. Other than the Garfield Park Conservatory, I can't think of any major things/attractions that would bring someone to one of Chicago's especially dangerous neighborhoods (though the Conservatory itself is fine to visit). Most crime anywhere here is between people who know each other. There are plenty of criminals here, but only a small percentage of them primarily prey on strangers outside of their neighborhoods (snatching phones on the CTA, etc.)

2/3.) There are a lot of minorities here. You might have heard some crazy things about them on the news and by word-of-mouth growing up (I know I did), but the vast majority of them are people like you just trying to get by with an honest living and hate dealing with crime as much as you do.
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Old 10-04-2013, 01:40 PM
 
2,115 posts, read 5,384,752 times
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I think this is a really difficult question to answer without knowing you personally. I have known folks from small-towns that easily adapted to the big city. At the same time, I know folks from small towns that could NEVER live in the big city, nor do they want to. It really depends, and I think a lot of it depends on a person's personality more than where they're from. I've known people originally from big cities, that left to far away suburbs and even small towns and vow never to return (at least to live).

If you can put up with larger crowds, higher expenses, worse traffic, public transportation, many different cultures, etc. etc. If you're cool with all that and if the prospect of leaving your town for the big city actually excites you to a degree, I think you have a better chance of liking the city. If those thoughts are overwhelming and nauseating, then you're probably going to hate it.
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