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We started our house hunting with a Berwyn address in mind. However, the more we heard about the schools, the more we decided against it. We chose Brookfield instead. One thing about Berwyn is that a lot of the white residents are elderly and no longer feel like supporting the local schools because their own kids have moved away. BTW, I noticed a previous poster said it takes a little less than an hour to get from Berwyn to downtown. That doesn't make sense. Even driving wouldn't take that long. It's about 20 minutes on Metra.
BTW, I noticed a previous poster said it takes a little less than an hour to get from Berwyn to downtown. That doesn't make sense. Even driving wouldn't take that long. It's about 20 minutes on Metra.
In rush hour, who knows. But yea, Metra is around 15-20.
We started our house hunting with a Berwyn address in mind. However, the more we heard about the schools, the more we decided against it. We chose Brookfield instead. One thing about Berwyn is that a lot of the white residents are elderly and no longer feel like supporting the local schools because their own kids have moved away. BTW, I noticed a previous poster said it takes a little less than an hour to get from Berwyn to downtown. That doesn't make sense. Even driving wouldn't take that long. It's about 20 minutes on Metra.
A lot of the younger residents are working hard to change this. Berwyn CARES was formed a couple of years ago and has made some strides to increase community awareness of the importance of education. Even if you don't have kids in school a good public school system benefits property values and quality of life. We can only hope it catches hold. Any Berwyn residents reading this please join!
Most of the elderly residents are dying off or have already gone. I think the challenge now is a Catch-22 situation of sorts -- many don't want to give more funds to the schools unless they show improvement but they're not likely to show a lot of improvement without additional funding. Comparatively speaking, Berwyn's schools (both elementary and high school) are drastically underfunded compared to other nearby districts. It doesn't help that the Dist. 201 (High School) Board is dominated by Cicero politicians either. That further alienates Berwyn's residents from the public school system.
All this needs to change if the community is really going to take off like many of us believe it can.
I have definitely gotten the impression that there is a lot of negativity coming from the Tinley/Orland/Palos areas on this board. My experience with the area is that alot of the people living there have already fled some neighborhood on the south side and are ultra sensitive to any (and I do mean any) minority presence. Anyone who has family on the south side probably has relatives that have done the Englewood (in the 40's) to Ashburn (in the 50's-60's) to Chicago Heights to Palos shuffle. You can only run for so long...
Anyway- Berwyn is a good community with arguably some of the best housing stock in the suburbs. I suggest anyone interested in the area actually go there and walk around. I have many times and have been nothing but impressed.
I really hope people aren't making decisions on a house purchase based on these message boards.
Yeah, sounds familiar. My parents are in Tinley Park (I've left the area at least for now). Lived in Alsip before that, and Blue Island before that. Parent lived in Blue Island, after leaving Harvey, after leaving Markham. Their parent grew up in I believe in South Shore followed by Roseland.
I would say these people in Tinley/Orland/Palos are probably not ultra-sensitive about minorities, but about crime. I agree the crime in Berwyn is of no concern for a near west suburb. But murders+rapes+assaults+robberies (per 100K in 2006) in Berwyn were still over 8X those in Orland Park. Consider stuff that goes on at Orland Square, which is a destination for some trash from surrounding areas, and those are some quiet streets in Orland Park.
Maybe housing stock is more expensive in Orland, but the local public schools are excellent, and for so many commuting to somewhere besides Chicago, the location is fine. Given all this you can see why middle-to-upscale young families choose Orland over Berwyn in droves.
Not knocking Berwyn. Just saying it is very different from Tinley/Orland/Palos and people in the thread are picking up on that. Obviously Berwyn offers many things Orland Park cannot, as this thread has detailed, and is teriffic for another subset of people. And for young families willing to find a situation in Berwyn that works for them instead of choosing the default location.
According to the 2005-2007 census bureau community survey that was just released, Berwyn has an Hispanic population of 53%-however-I tend to believe it even higher. As I stand outside on 16th st./just off of Oak Park Ave.-almost every car driving by appears to be driven by an Hispanic. These numbers are often distorted due to overcrowded homes that are not reporting an accurate number of people living there.
Yeah, sounds familiar. My parents are in Tinley Park (I've left the area at least for now). Lived in Alsip before that, and Blue Island before that. Parent lived in Blue Island, after leaving Harvey, after leaving Markham. Their parent grew up in I believe in South Shore followed by Roseland.
I would say these people in Tinley/Orland/Palos are probably not ultra-sensitive about minorities, but about crime. I agree the crime in Berwyn is of no concern for a near west suburb. But murders+rapes+assaults+robberies (per 100K in 2006) in Berwyn were still over 8X those in Orland Park. Consider stuff that goes on at Orland Square, which is a destination for some trash from surrounding areas, and those are some quiet streets in Orland Park.
Maybe housing stock is more expensive in Orland, but the local public schools are excellent, and for so many commuting to somewhere besides Chicago, the location is fine. Given all this you can see why middle-to-upscale young families choose Orland over Berwyn in droves.
Not knocking Berwyn. Just saying it is very different from Tinley/Orland/Palos and people in the thread are picking up on that. Obviously Berwyn offers many things Orland Park cannot, as this thread has detailed, and is teriffic for another subset of people. And for young families willing to find a situation in Berwyn that works for them instead of choosing the default location.
According to this newly released community survey by the census bureau, Orland Parks white population consists of 91%. also the bureau lists Berwyn as having roughly 50% of its housing consisting of single family homes, where Orland park consisting of about 80% of its housing being single family homes. Orland park has a much greater chance of avoiding section 8 renters, with such low numbers of apartments.
Yeah, sounds familiar. My parents are in Tinley Park (I've left the area at least for now). Lived in Alsip before that, and Blue Island before that. Parent lived in Blue Island, after leaving Harvey, after leaving Markham. Their parent grew up in I believe in South Shore followed by Roseland.
I would say these people in Tinley/Orland/Palos are probably not ultra-sensitive about minorities, but about crime. I agree the crime in Berwyn is of no concern for a near west suburb. But murders+rapes+assaults+robberies (per 100K in 2006) in Berwyn were still over 8X those in Orland Park. Consider stuff that goes on at Orland Square, which is a destination for some trash from surrounding areas, and those are some quiet streets in Orland Park.
Maybe housing stock is more expensive in Orland, but the local public schools are excellent, and for so many commuting to somewhere besides Chicago, the location is fine. Given all this you can see why middle-to-upscale young families choose Orland over Berwyn in droves.
Not knocking Berwyn. Just saying it is very different from Tinley/Orland/Palos and people in the thread are picking up on that. Obviously Berwyn offers many things Orland Park cannot, as this thread has detailed, and is teriffic for another subset of people. And for young families willing to find a situation in Berwyn that works for them instead of choosing the default location.
Berwyn does have a higher crime rate than Orland Park – 3,170/100k versus 2,152/100k (2007, per Illinois State Police). Berwyn had a higher violent crime index but not 8x higher – 1,611 versus 1,286.
In any event, your real life odds of being a victim of violent crime, unless you’re into selling drugs or in a violent relationship of some form or other, are pretty low in both communities. So I don’t think that’s why people may choose Orland if weighing both. I think the reason would probably have more to do with the schools. If people are avoiding Berwyn in “droves” because of crime, then they should be running from Oak Park screaming, given that its crime rate and incidents of violent crime are about 20% higher than in Berwyn. Ditto for Evanston, which has a crime rate almost 25% higher.
As to demographics, I think I’ll take the statistics gleaned from formal U.S. Census Bureau methods over our informal message board census taker. I have a sense that her conclusions may be biased – what is she doing standing on a street corner in the middle of Berwyn counting Mexicans anyway?? They were also perhaps derived from standing in a less than ideal location for a census. 16th St. is a major artery to and from Cicero, and Oak Park Ave. is less than one mile from the Cicero border. Cicero is 84% Hispanic per the 2005-07 census.
Moreover, the north and east parts of Berwyn have more Latinos, whereas the south and west portions are more Caucasian. Go move over to the corner of Riverside Drive and Maple and I bet the data set will change.
50% of the housing stock is rental? That’s news to me, and to the 2005-07 Census, which shows that Berwyn’s housing stock is 36% renter occupied and 64% owner occupied. That’s not out of line with Oak Park and other inner-ring suburbs. As to Section 8, Berwyn had about 110 of them as of last fall. Oak Park had over 650 and Calumet City over 900 to put that in perspective. Tinley Park actually has more Section 8 vouchers being administered within its borders by the Housing Authority of the County of Cook than Berwyn FYI. For whatever reason, Berwyn is not a big draw to Section 8 voucher holders.
Correction re Oak Park -- it has about 450 Section 8 vouchers, not 650. That's from their housing authority's website. Someone whack me with a stick. Still though, this shows that Berwyn's voucher number is quite low for a community with a lot of apartments near the City.
Berwyn does have a higher crime rate than Orland Park – 3,170/100k versus 2,152/100k (2007, per Illinois State Police). Berwyn had a higher violent crime index but not 8x higher – 1,611 versus 1,286.
In any event, your real life odds of being a victim of violent crime, unless you’re into selling drugs or in a violent relationship of some form or other, are pretty low in both communities. So I don’t think that’s why people may choose Orland if weighing both. I think the reason would probably have more to do with the schools. If people are avoiding Berwyn in “droves” because of crime, then they should be running from Oak Park screaming, given that its crime rate and incidents of violent crime are about 20% higher than in Berwyn. Ditto for Evanston, which has a crime rate almost 25% higher.
As to demographics, I think I’ll take the statistics gleaned from formal U.S. Census Bureau methods over our informal message board census taker. I have a sense that her conclusions may be biased – what is she doing standing on a street corner in the middle of Berwyn counting Mexicans anyway?? They were also perhaps derived from standing in a less than ideal location for a census. 16th St. is a major artery to and from Cicero, and Oak Park Ave. is less than one mile from the Cicero border. Cicero is 84% Hispanic per the 2005-07 census.
Moreover, the north and east parts of Berwyn have more Latinos, whereas the south and west portions are more Caucasian. Go move over to the corner of Riverside Drive and Maple and I bet the data set will change.
50% of the housing stock is rental? That’s news to me, and to the 2005-07 Census, which shows that Berwyn’s housing stock is 36% renter occupied and 64% owner occupied. That’s not out of line with Oak Park and other inner-ring suburbs. As to Section 8, Berwyn had about 110 of them as of last fall. Oak Park had over 650 and Calumet City over 900 to put that in perspective. Tinley Park actually has more Section 8 vouchers being administered within its borders by the Housing Authority of the County of Cook than Berwyn FYI. For whatever reason, Berwyn is not a big draw to Section 8 voucher holders.
First of all, I received all of my data from 2005-2007 neighborhood survey conducted by the U.S. census bureau,which was released last month. I never stated how many rentals were in berwyn, but that there are only about 50% of its homes being single family. Which leaves the other half of its housing a target to section 8 renters. And while on the subject of section 8, how many section 8 vouchers were used in Orland park? Probably not a number that would make Berwyn look good. Oh, and while standing on 16th street, a few blocks east of Oak Park avenue, I wasnt conducting any personal survey. I was outside of an ethnic social club that I belong to talking to a few friends. I was just amazed that every single car driving past me appeared to be Hispanic.
I am sorry but Berwyn (So.Berwyn) has had an influx of young prefessionals move in of late. Why? Metra, near MacNeal Hospital and straight shot down to Union Station in 15-20 minutes and along way to Rush-Presbyterian and UIC plus LOW REAL ESTATE TAXES. Beautiful, historic and huge homes, Bungalows, Queen Ann - so much square footage for your dollar! P.S. Most don't stay in any given area/neighborhood but 5-7 years, some stay longer but not a large percentage. Berwyn is still a top suburban pick for me for young professionals because its affordable. A community is what you make it, you have to get involved!
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Crime and schools - not minorities
