Thinking of moving to Illinois (Chicago, Rockford: to rent, insurance, crime)

[tlw]

$800 month is easily doable in Carbondale and that entire Southern Illinois area. Add Marion, Murphysboro, Carterville, Cambria, West Frankfort, Herrin, and all the other little towns in that vicinity, and you have many choices. With SIU being in Carbondale, it's obviously a little more left.

That area is the best kept secret in the Midwest. The public schools are great in the areas of academics, athletics, and the arts. There is very much a creative element to the town including the music and fine arts scene. SIU creates a very diverse population which allows for different religious and political views. The enrollment at SIU is down substantially from it's peak in the 90's just as many state universities. They seem to have stabilized, and have actively been taking steps to increase.

In addition, the area is some of the most beautiful in the Midwest. You are within short driving distance to 6 fantastic lakes. Boating, fishing, water sports, hunting, camping, and hiking abound. The 289,000 acre Shawnee National Forest is just a few minutes drive south and quite gorgeous.

Carbondale also has Amtrak service and a regional airport. If you need a bit of a city fix, St. Louis is a very easy 2 hour drive. It's also a little warmer than upstate. With that comes less snow and an increased growing season.

[blickcd]

I graduated from SIU-C and had also thought of Carbondale, but you would want to go there and check it out really well first.

It’s a college town and should be liberal enough for you. However, a place that is affordable, large enough with a yard, and would allow animals (though you didn’t specify what type) most likely will be a short distance outside of town, putting you back among the conservatives.

I’m sure there is a demand for Lyft and Doordash in the area. However, keep in mind that enrollment is usually very low in the summers, which may mean not much gig work available that time of year. I’m also thinking that there will be plenty of students doing that sort of work for extra money, so maybe those gigs are too competitive to be lucrative enough for you. Not sure if those companies let you easily work in another state. If so, go over there by yourself for a week, stay at a cheap motel, and check out the gig situation, housing, etc.

Just so you know, I have lived in Illinois before, have family and others I know that are still there in central Illinois. I have also moved several times with dogs, multiple aquariums, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, and birds. IMO if I had to go through the trouble of such a move again, I wouldn’t go to Illinois just for the perceived liberal political climate. I would head somewhere else, like Colorado, or the Pacific northwest.

[CyclingChemist]

Perhaps Wisconsin would be a better bet for the OP. It has some liberal areas but is overall a purple state where there are enough conservatives to prevent the Dems from totally wrecking the state and taxing and driving the people out like they did to Illinois and most other states they get complete control over.

[personone]

Originally Posted by tlw

$800 month is easily doable in Carbondale and that entire Southern Illinois area. Add Marion, Murphysboro, Carterville, Cambria, West Frankfort, Herrin, and all the other little towns in that vicinity, and you have many choices. With SIU being in Carbondale, it's obviously a little more left.

That area is the best kept secret in the Midwest. The public schools are great in the areas of academics, athletics, and the arts. There is very much a creative element to the town including the music and fine arts scene. SIU creates a very diverse population which allows for different religious and political views. The enrollment at SIU is down substantially from it's peak in the 90's just as many state universities. They seem to have stabilized, and have actively been taking steps to increase.

In addition, the area is some of the most beautiful in the Midwest. You are within short driving distance to 6 fantastic lakes. Boating, fishing, water sports, hunting, camping, and hiking abound. The 289,000 acre Shawnee National Forest is just a few minutes drive south and quite gorgeous.

Carbondale also has Amtrak service and a regional airport. If you need a bit of a city fix, St. Louis is a very easy 2 hour drive. It's also a little warmer than upstate. With that comes less snow and an increased growing season.

$800 for a 3BR? Not sure how serious the OP is about moving since he hasn’t replied back to this thread much, but in the OP it seemed like he was looking for a 3BR.

[Lexusof5]

Originally Posted by personone

$800 for a 3BR? Not sure how serious the OP is about moving since he hasn’t replied back to this thread much, but in the OP it seemed like he was looking for a 3BR.

Unless something has drastically changed. I don't think $800 for a 3bd exists in Carbondale. Also keep in mind Carbondale is roughly 21,000 people and that's probably including some of the college students. SIU, though scenic and still a good university, has seen declining enrollment for the last 10 years now. Carbondale is liberal to some extent but it's no comparison to the Chicagoland area.

[Kmanshouse]

I've heard a few people say good things about Carbondale. When we took our kids there for a college tour, it looked like a dump. Nobody wanted to go there for college. But maybe we just saw the bad parts or something? It was a cloudy day, so that likely didn't help, but none of us liked it.

[blickcd]

How did the campus look? It was usually kept up really well.

The actual town of Carbondale is nothing special to look at. Back in the day, all houses and apartments close to campus were student rentals and many were owned by slumlords that didn't keep them up. However rough those areas might have looked, they were considered safe.

As a graduate, I say if you can't find anything to your liking, go back to Carbondale for a second look.

[Kmanshouse]

Campus looked okay. This was back in Spring of 2014. Buildings there were built in that brutalist stage that is unappealing to me - too old to be looking updated, too new to look classic and beautiful. SIU isn't unique in this regard - there are others that have that same look.

I've just never understood why Carbondale is/was considered desirable or a best kept secret. Nobody in our family found it appealing at all. It was a hard no from our kids. But it was a dreary day outside, so that likely didn't help. Maybe on a sunnier day with greenery or fall leaves it would look nicer.

Similarly, we visited Murray State on that same trip - weather was the same and while not a special campus it was more appealing to all of us than Carbondale/SIU.

[pythonis]

Originally Posted by personone

$800 for a 3BR? Not sure how serious the OP is about moving since he hasn’t replied back to this thread much, but in the OP it seemed like he was looking for a 3BR.

Originally Posted by Kmanshouse

I've heard a few people say good things about Carbondale. When we took our kids there for a college tour, it looked like a dump. Nobody wanted to go there for college. But maybe we just saw the bad parts or something? It was a cloudy day, so that likely didn't help, but none of us liked it.

I'm still here, just didn't know the thread had taken off as it had. Thanks for everyone's input. We are still looking at Illinois but we've also looked at Kentucky. Thing is with that it's either super high population (to us) or super low.

[pythonis]

At the moment we live in Clarksville TN and it is just not us. It's boring, no nightlife, people do nothing but smoke pot, come home, and smoke more pot. They all love true crime stuff but like kids watching scary movies they see evil everywhere and are in a constant state of hypervigilance. It's become a town of giant pickup trucks with flags attached to the sides like you see in Texas. Rolling coal has started to become a thing here although it is uncommon. Roads are becoming increasingly bad, there are practically no sidewalks, and the sales tax is insane (9.75%).
We just want to live in a nice town that has a good neighborly feel to it, where there's a decent amount of businesses, but it isn't overrun by fear mongered gun toting introverts. We are childfree and like being in non-family atmospheres. Nothing wrong with kids but here in Clarksville it's almost mandatory that you have kids to live here and it's all overprotective/helicopter parents.
We want a town where we can have both a work and personal life, where we can choose to either go out to a business for food/drink/entertainment, or we can invite people over/be invited over without some overly inflated sense of stranger danger like we have here in Clarksville.