Champaign, Illinois - where to live? (Springfield, Urbana: section 8, to rent, homes)

[chunn7]

We used to live in St. Joe. It's a nice small town, but growing rapidly. Property taxes are high.

[Katarina Witt]

SilverChalice:

I don't really care about a new, fancy home. I want the peace and quiet and the clean air. Most of all I am looking forward to having 4 seasons again not eternal summer.

Champaign's summer is awful and can be pretty long. Hot and humid. Fall can be nice, winter is average to short and COLD! Not much of a spring usually. Your allergies might bother you there, too. I lived there 7 years.

[M TYPE X]

Life is pretty easy when you think about it. The cool people have One Main, and all the cookie cutter types have southwest Champaign.

[NewGrad]

I moved away from Champaign a couple years ago for school. I miss it like crazy. That's all I have to say. It's a small city, but it has pretty much everything a person would need.

[SilverChalice]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

SilverChalice:

Champaign's summer is awful and can be pretty long. Hot and humid. Fall can be nice, winter is average to short and COLD! Not much of a spring usually. Your allergies might bother you there, too. I lived there 7 years.

Their summer cannot possibly be as awful as Texas summers. I'm willing to bet on that. As for winter being cold, it cannot be worse than Michigan and I loved that.

[M TYPE X]

Originally Posted by NewGrad

I moved away from Champaign a couple years ago for school. I miss it like crazy. That's all I have to say. It's a small city, but it has pretty much everything a person would need.

Everything you really need, nothing you really want ... well, a bed for napping, and sidewalks for walking, and air for breathing.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by SilverChalice

Their summer cannot possibly be as awful as Texas summers. I'm willing to bet on that. As for winter being cold, it cannot be worse than Michigan and I loved that.

You may be right, but in Champaign you have both a hot, hot summer and a short but cold winter. I loved the winters, hated the summers.

[M TYPE X]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

You may be right, but in Champaign you have both a hot, hot summer and a short but cold winter. I loved the winters, hated the summers.

Plains winters are nasty ... winters in Michigan don't feel anywhere as bad. It's actually cooler now in Austin, Texas than Champaign, Illinois now, but I take a shower twice per day regardless of how badly I am sweating when I return from the library.

[Switch625]

We get much less snow than Michigan does. One heavy snowfall per season is what you should expect living in the Champaign-Urbana area. Winter temperatures can get colder than Michigan, because we don't have the moderating influence of the Great Lakes. By the same token, NO LAKE EFFECT SNOW!

Summers are humid, but the temp almost never breaks 100. Since you currently live in Texas, you'll find the summers here to be a tad milder than what you are used to.

I live in Saint Joseph. It's a great town, and it really is growing like a weed. At this point the population has passed 4K with no slowdown in sight. Property taxes are higher than the other little towns, but not as high as you will find in C-U. St Joe is in the middle of the cultural transition from small town to suburb. The village board and the mayor are pro-growth, proactively expanding services to meet future needs. If the village has one problem at this point, it is that retail services are lagging behind. A shopping center is planned on the western edge of town, so perhaps that problem will be solved in the near future.

[hoosiermommy]

I am also from Texas and am relocating to Champaign. My husband received a job offer from a company up there. We plan to rent a house first just to make sure that the job works out. We found some homes for rent in a neighborhood called Ashland park in Champaign. Does anyone know anything about this neighborhood area? Is it safe, how long to get to U of I campus etc?