Cheaper areas of Chicago to live in

[irishfan77]

What's the word on Lincoln Park? all I know is that there's a zoo and a college there and that its expensive, how expensive?

[marothisu]

Lincoln Park is a safe area of town with bars, restaurants, etc and a bunch of yuppie type of people as well as some older wealthier folk for the most part. Not very diverse, but still one of the better, more premiere parts of town. Great public transit there too and some nice places there. It's slightly more expensive than Lakeview. As I mentioned before, you can get a 1 bedroom for $1500/month in just about any neighborhood of Chicago. So you do the math on that one and Lincoln Park....

If you want to stretch your money to get a 2 bedroom and live close to downtown and neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and Lakeview, then you should look into areas like Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, North Center, and Edgewater. Some of the good places on the south/southwest side you may want to look at could be Hyde Park (where the U of Chicago is), Bridgeport, and Pilsen though some of these are semi insular. On the west side, the popular neighborhoods are West Town (i.e. Wicker Park, Ukrainian VIllage, East Village, Noble Square), Logan Square, and up and coming kind of now is Avondale.

Outside of these, $1500/month is pretty easy. I remember my friends' 3 bedroom in Irving Park cost $1500/month total last summer.

[irishfan77]

I heard U of Chi. is kind of in the ghetto

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by irishfan77

I heard U of Chi. is kind of in the ghetto

No, it's not. Hyde Park is one of the safest areas of town and generally nice. There's not a bar every 20 feet like there is in some parts of Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, or "downtown," but there's some stuff to do and it's not ghetto. U of Chicago is one of the top 5 colleges in the entire world. There's no way something that prestigious would stand to do that. The wealthiest people who first inhabitited Chicago built their mansions in that area and many are still there and inhabited by people. Obama's mansion is in Kenwood which is directly north of Hyde Park.




The areas around Hyde Park are shady/shady-ish - Washington Park and Woodlawn, and parts of Kenwood are weird, but in no way is U of Chicago in the ghetto. If you're looking for a ton of restaurants, bars, and shops though, then you probably don't want to live in Hyde Park. It's a good kind of cosmopolitan type of community though if you want something kind of quiet with a few things to do.