Moving to Champaign Il help please! (Rockford, Peoria: crime, how much, homes)

[GivMeABreak]

I am also considering a move to the Champaign area and have done quite a bit of research. From what I understand, as far as grade schools, the school district decides which school your children will go to. So, you can live nearby one of the nicer schools, however they may send your children to a school across the town. I have decided to avoid the campus as much as possible. The outskirts of Champaign are great. I work on Windsor Road and find that commuting is easy and everything you need is within minutes. If and when we make the move, I am sure that our children will attend a private school for grade school and then we will check out our possibilties for high school. I've heard good things about the Catholic and Lutheran grade schools as well as St. Thomas Moore High School.

[cwarnold]

If you avoid campus altogether you'll miss out on A Lot of what CU has to offer. There are times to avoid campus, and I wouldn't want to live near it ... but it's a giant campus with a lot to offer; without it CU would be just another decatur or danville.

[ShampooBanana]

Originally Posted by GivMeABreak

I am also considering a move to the Champaign area and have done quite a bit of research. From what I understand, as far as grade schools, the school district decides which school your children will go to. So, you can live nearby one of the nicer schools, however they may send your children to a school across the town. I have decided to avoid the campus as much as possible. The outskirts of Champaign are great. I work on Windsor Road and find that commuting is easy and everything you need is within minutes. If and when we make the move, I am sure that our children will attend a private school for grade school and then we will check out our possibilties for high school. I've heard good things about the Catholic and Lutheran grade schools as well as St. Thomas Moore High School.

The school district choosing which school your kid goes to only applies to Champaign school districts. Urbana has set neighborhood boundaries that determine where your kid will go to school. Basically, if you live in a neighborhood with a school in Urbana, your kid will go there unless he/she goes to a private school. The best public elementary schools in Urbana are Leal (best), Yankee Ridge, and Wiley.

The private schools are generally good, though. if your kid is really smart and the right age he can test into University High school which is a top tier laboratory school that is connected to U of I. It's produced several pulitzer and nobel prize winners in the past.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by cwarnold

Anybody who's lived in CU can say *without Any doubt* that most of the violent crime (and petty theft) reflected in the statistics happens on/around campus. "My bike and all my friend's bikes got stolen". Yep .. It's virtually guaranteed to happen in some student-filled neighborhoods/apartment buildings. "I got beat up 15 times in 3 years!" Did you happen to get drunk and bounce around party to party every weekend?

No, as a matter of fact for several years I worked 3-11 PM in a hospital two out of every three weekends.

Even the worst areas of CU (i.e. the "ghetto") are not really that bad. There's no area I wouldn't feel completely safe driving thru. There are a few places where I'd keep my head down if I was walking thru, but in general, if you have Common Sense, CU is Safe. Don't live in the "poverty stricken" student districts, and stay away from the undergrad party scene and you've got Nothing to worry about.

I had a knife pulled on me in the "ghetto" when I was a visiting nurse. When my bike was stolen I didn't live in the student ghetto. Nor did DH, whose home was invaded. (This was before we were married). The above is "blaming the victim".

[M TYPE X]

Originally Posted by cwarnold

Anybody who's lived in CU can say *without Any doubt* that most of the violent crime (and petty theft) reflected in the statistics happens on/around campus. "My bike and all my friend's bikes got stolen". Yep .. It's virtually guaranteed to happen in some student-filled neighborhoods/apartment buildings. "I got beat up 15 times in 3 years!" Did you happen to get drunk and bounce around party to party every weekend?

Even the worst areas of CU (i.e. the "ghetto") are not really that bad. There's no area I wouldn't feel completely safe driving thru. There are a few places where I'd keep my head down if I was walking thru, but in general, if you have Common Sense, CU is Safe. Don't live in the "poverty stricken" student districts, and stay away from the undergrad party scene and you've got Nothing to worry about.

Students generally aren't the source of violent crime that you would see in rustbelt cities. Champaign skews closer to the Terre Hautes and Youngstowns of the world than Ann Arbor, Iowa City, or Madison. Ann Arbor and Madison are much larger cities than Champaign-Urbana.

Not that I have a choice, as I would rather be in Madison or (back) in Ann Arbor. Iowa City is very clean and nice, but just too small for me. It's more scenic (same goes for State College).

State College has a higher crime rate than any other small town in mid-Pennsylvania, but definitely much lower than midsize Pennsylvania cities (i.e. the Scrantons). Champaign is statistically even with Peoria and Springfield, where it should be lower.

[cwarnold]

Originally Posted by Katiana

No, as a matter of fact for several years I worked 3-11 PM in a hospital two out of every three weekends.

I had a knife pulled on me in the "ghetto" when I was a visiting nurse. When my bike was stolen I didn't live in the student ghetto. Nor did DH, whose home was invaded. (This was before we were married). The above is "blaming the victim".

Ha, yeah .. I guess it is blaming the victim. Maybe it's just my dumb luck ..

Not to beat a dead horse, but most of the time when people in bad areas get a knife pulled on them, they don't report it as "I had a knife pulled on me": they report it as "I was robbed at knife point" or "I was raped". Maybe you were; I'm sorry that anything bad happened to you. I just don't see Champaign as terribly crime-ridden ... but admittedly, I don't have a whole lot to compare it to. I had a roommate who told me he'd never been hit in the face before, and it blew my mind. I guess it's just what you're used to ...

[cwarnold]

Originally Posted by M TYPE X

Students generally aren't the source of violent crime that you would see in rustbelt cities. Champaign skews closer to the Terre Hautes and Youngstowns of the world than Ann Arbor, Iowa City, or Madison. Ann Arbor and Madison are much larger cities than Champaign-Urbana.

I think its a bit of a stretch to classify CU as a rustbelt city. Even Chicago is pushing it, IMO, but Champaign for sure: it's economy has never been driven by industrial/automotive production. You could argue that it was founded as a "train-stop", but it's still a farm town with a large university. It's getting bigger and there are probably a lot of people who would argue that CU is not "made by" the university. Regardless, tho, it's hard to argue that CU has (or even had) an industrial based economy.

Originally Posted by M TYPE X

Not that I have a choice, as I would rather be in Madison or (back) in Ann Arbor. Iowa City is very clean and nice, but just too small for me. It's more scenic (same goes for State College).

I'd never claim that there arn't better places to live: I've lived far too few places for that .. I've never even Been to Ann Arbor or Madison (I'm thinking I'll visit Madison sometime this summer tho) .. both also home to well-known universities. But Ann Arbor *has* to be more of a rust-belt town than Champaign ...

Originally Posted by M TYPE X

State College has a higher crime rate than any other small town in mid-Pennsylvania, but definitely much lower than midsize Pennsylvania cities (i.e. the Scrantons). Champaign is statistically even with Peoria and Springfield, where it should be lower.

Is Springfield much larger than CU? How does Decatur rank? I think Champaign does have a lot of "petty" crime .. I just don't think it's that big of a deal, as it's relatively easy to avoid.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by cwarnold

Ha, yeah .. I guess it is blaming the victim. Maybe it's just my dumb luck ..

Not to beat a dead horse, but most of the time when people in bad areas get a knife pulled on them, they don't report it as "I had a knife pulled on me": they report it as "I was robbed at knife point" or "I was raped". Maybe you were; I'm sorry that anything bad happened to you. I just don't see Champaign as terribly crime-ridden ... but admittedly, I don't have a whole lot to compare it to. I had a roommate who told me he'd never been hit in the face before, and it blew my mind. I guess it's just what you're used to ...

Nothing bad happened. The guy just had a knife in his hand pointing at me when he answered the door. I definitely saw the seamier side of that town.

[M TYPE X]

cwarnold, you misread/I miswrote my post. I was comparing Champaign to rustbelt cities (Terre Haute, Youngstown, etc) and other college towns. Crime here is obviously lower than old decayed rustbelt places, but higher than most flagship college towns.

The data (here on the C-D website) I analyzed revealed that Champaign-Urbana crime rates are fairly close to Peoria and Springfield crime.
Danville and Decatur are higher. Bloomington-Normal is somewhat lower than C-U crime.

[ShampooBanana]

Originally Posted by cwarnold

I think its a bit of a stretch to classify CU as a rustbelt city. Even Chicago is pushing it, IMO, but Champaign for sure: it's economy has never been driven by industrial/automotive production. You could argue that it was founded as a "train-stop", but it's still a farm town with a large university. It's getting bigger and there are probably a lot of people who would argue that CU is not "made by" the university. Regardless, tho, it's hard to argue that CU has (or even had) an industrial based economy.


I'd never claim that there arn't better places to live: I've lived far too few places for that .. I've never even Been to Ann Arbor or Madison (I'm thinking I'll visit Madison sometime this summer tho) .. both also home to well-known universities. But Ann Arbor *has* to be more of a rust-belt town than Champaign ...


Is Springfield much larger than CU? How does Decatur rank? I think Champaign does have a lot of "petty" crime .. I just don't think it's that big of a deal, as it's relatively easy to avoid.

Champaign-Urbana certainly is not comparable to Peoria, Rockford, Decatur, or even Springfield. While it is about the same size as those towns, it is far different, far more "white collar" and diverse demographically. It has a much more educated population on average, as well. It probably compares best with the nearby twin cities of Bloomington-Normal that any other place in Illinois, and this is coming from someone who has visited almost every single major city or town in the state at one point or another. The main difference between C-U and B-N is that B-N is much more of a corporate white collar community because the State Farm than C-U is. C-U is much more dominated by it's major education-related and health care sectors.