Another UChicago student murdered. 20-yo undergraduate dies after being shot on subway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has there ever been an exodus of academics from UChicago to Northwestern due to the crime? I know there's a lot of cross-exchange between, for example, Harvard and MIT faculty, and I can imagine some of the crime might be an impetus to move north.

My husband is a professor at U of C and literally this has never come up in the many conversations I've had with his colleagues. In fact, location tends to be a draw to folks because Chicago is a fun, big, affordable city and people want to live there. The only safety related discussions I hear about are where people want to live (like, suburbs? Woodlawn? Kenwood? North Side?) and those really have more to do with schools and taxes.

Shockingly, I'm sure, many people in the world actually prefer places like the south side of Chicago to Evanston.

DP, but you make it sound like Evanston is some distant self-contained universe. Evanston is as close (if not closer) to many of the attractions that make Chicago the great city it is, and is a great town in and of itself.

Your last sentence is also quite a big claim.

Chicagoan here who was just there last week - in both Evanston and HP. Evanston is definitely not closer to downtown Chicago than HP is. Evanston is almost 20 miles from the loop whereas HP is less than half that. Evanston is farther away, it’s a fact.

But who cares about being close to the Loop? Yaaawn. So boring. Unless you're a tourist or teenager who took the train in from the suburbs to take selfies at Millennium Park. If I were a college student I'd so much rather be closer to Lakeview, Wrigleyville, Lincoln Park...

My kid cared about being close to Chinatown, Pilsen, Garfield Park Conservatory, Grant Park (for music), Maggie Daley Park (ice skating and rock climbing wall), theaters, food halls, and museums. Shopped in the South Loop (Roosevelt) — which pretty much mirrored stores at Clark and Diversey. She had no difficult getting from UChicago to Lakeview/Andersonville (where her uncles lived) or Lincoln Park (where she had assignments that she worked on at the zoo), but she thought northern areas were less interesting/more expensive than downtown and other more southern/western parts of the city. Her friends seemed to gravitate to Navy Pier/Miracle Mile — not Lincoln Park. I think your mental map may be outdated or skewed to single professionals.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, Mag Mile! Grew up in SoCal and old habits die hard, lol!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are those #CareNotCops fools?

Prominent U of C professor,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:South Side of Chicago has always been dangerous. Always will be, from the looks of it.

The rest of the city is just like any other city in America.

It's not a warzone. It's an under-served neighborhood that has families, babies, elderly people. Don't reduce it to something convenient, where it's the home of lots of folks.

No one said it was a warzone. But it is dangerous. Not sure what agenda you're trying to push by obfuscating that.

It is a war zone. I've lived in a lot of dangerous cities, south side Chicago is the worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has there ever been an exodus of academics from UChicago to Northwestern due to the crime? I know there's a lot of cross-exchange between, for example, Harvard and MIT faculty, and I can imagine some of the crime might be an impetus to move north.

My husband is a professor at U of C and literally this has never come up in the many conversations I've had with his colleagues. In fact, location tends to be a draw to folks because Chicago is a fun, big, affordable city and people want to live there. The only safety related discussions I hear about are where people want to live (like, suburbs? Woodlawn? Kenwood? North Side?) and those really have more to do with schools and taxes.

Shockingly, I'm sure, many people in the world actually prefer places like the south side of Chicago to Evanston.

Interesting. It definitely comes up among grad students and profs in other departments.

To the folks whose kids are considering UofC — there are other ways out of Hyde Park than the El. You can take a campus shuttle or free bus to the eastern side of Hyde Park and then catch the #6 which runs express to the Loop, then hop on the El there. It does feel safer to do that coming and going, especially when alone.

+1

Yeah/ that’s the Jeffrey and it’s safer than the El. Take that to the Loop and then transfer. Maybe now the Univ offers shuttles. In the 1990s they didn’t, or I wasn’t aware of it. The south side has always been dangerous, and U of C kids largely figure out how to get around without putting themselves in danger. It IS a big deal that the dangerous part of the city lies between U of C and the Loop/north side. HP feels cut off. Evanston is much farther for sure, but the neighborhoods between it and the city. It does suck that the bars and stuff that kids want to go to are usually north of the loop (no one is partying in the Garfield Park conservatory!), but the kids who want to go to U of C aren’t the type who care as much about that anyway. It’s the 20-something B schoolers who suffer that way. 😄 They are (or were) such vastly different schools that all this competition on DCUM is silly. They are both terrific schools in an absolutely fabulous world class super fun foodie unpretentious town, you can’t go wrong. This latest thing is just awful horrible and so sad, but don’t turn it into a reason NOT to go to college there, or not to choose U of C.

[Anonymous]

“...but the kids who want to go to U of C aren’t the type who care as much about that anyway. It’s the 20-something B schoolers who suffer that way.”

This isn’t accurate anymore. Rich kids venture downtown a lot. HP is boring. And the college gives everyone U-Passes to encourage the use of (free) public transportation. But rich kids tend to Uber downtown. I believe this murdered young man was interning downtown.

[Anonymous]

I haven't lived in Lakeview/Wrigleyville in over 10 years but I never met or saw any U of C students. It's all young working professionals in their 20s-30s. I don't know where the students hang out but they aren't using their fake IDs to get into the bars in the northside, or at least they weren't back then.

[Anonymous]

International news with a lot of deeper insights and photos.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9762319/amp/Chicago-college-student-20-killed-stray-bullet-flew-subway-car-window.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:International news with a lot of deeper insights and photos.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9762319/amp/Chicago-college-student-20-killed-stray-bullet-flew-subway-car-window.html

“Chicago Alderman Anthony Napolitano called the city a 'war zone' and ripped the city's leaders, particularly Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for the surge in crime.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I take public transportation all.the.time, in Chicago, DC and other places. Just being on public transportation is not inherently dangerous. It is so freakishly suburban-white-bubble to suggest otherwise.

Seriously, just take UC off your kids list. It isn't that hard. But you may want to take Yale off of it as well. And just about every other "urban" school.

New Haven crime, especially downtown around Yale, is not in the same stratosphere as the war zone neighborhoods UChicago is in and bordering. Woodlawn, Washington Park, and Englewood neighborhoods are exponentially more dangerous than downtown New Haven.

Last year was an specially violent year for all of New Haven: 20 people killed, 121 people shot.

That's an average summer weekend in Chicago.

That’s actually not hyperbole — the final total for the 4th of July weekend was 100 shot and 18 killed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is pretty damning:

"Chicago Neighborhood Crime Stats: 29 Incidents Reported
University of Chicago reported 29 safety-related incidents involving students while on Chicago public property near campus in 2019. Of the 3,990 colleges and universities that reported crime and safety data, 3,845 of them reported fewer incidents than this."

From:

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-chicago/student-life/crime/

Please read the linked report:
“ Reported Incidents by Category

Disciplinary actions represented 26.8% of all on-campus incidents. Arrests related to possession represented 2.4% of all on-campus incidents. Violence against women represented 32.3% of all on-campus incidents. Arrests for major crimes represented 38.6% of all on-campus incidents.”.
It looks these incidences are about the UChicago students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think people realize just how huge the City of Chicago is. 245 sq/mi it's over three times the size of D.C. Improving the area around U of C is a herculean task and not something a single university can fix. So you get a lot of smoke and mirrors and theater; lipstick on a pig.

What blunted things south of downtown was for the last 10 to 15 years developers dumped billions of dollars into everything west of downtown, e.g. West Loop. If that investment instead went south, they would have made everything in-between U of C campus and downtown wonderful. Unfortunate. Maybe Obama's Library will trigger that sort of investment south of downtown, but who knows. Even if it does, you're talking ten to 20 years out.

Do you mean “Gentrification” is the only fix?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has there ever been an exodus of academics from UChicago to Northwestern due to the crime? I know there's a lot of cross-exchange between, for example, Harvard and MIT faculty, and I can imagine some of the crime might be an impetus to move north.

My husband is a professor at U of C and literally this has never come up in the many conversations I've had with his colleagues. In fact, location tends to be a draw to folks because Chicago is a fun, big, affordable city and people want to live there. The only safety related discussions I hear about are where people want to live (like, suburbs? Woodlawn? Kenwood? North Side?) and those really have more to do with schools and taxes.

Shockingly, I'm sure, many people in the world actually prefer places like the south side of Chicago to Evanston.

Interesting. It definitely comes up among grad students and profs in other departments.

To the folks whose kids are considering UofC — there are other ways out of Hyde Park than the El. You can take a campus shuttle or free bus to the eastern side of Hyde Park and then catch the #6 which runs express to the Loop, then hop on the El there. It does feel safer to do that coming and going, especially when alone.

+1

Yeah/ that’s the Jeffrey and it’s safer than the El. Take that to the Loop and then transfer. Maybe now the Univ offers shuttles. In the 1990s they didn’t, or I wasn’t aware of it. The south side has always been dangerous, and U of C kids largely figure out how to get around without putting themselves in danger. It IS a big deal that the dangerous part of the city lies between U of C and the Loop/north side. HP feels cut off. Evanston is much farther for sure, but the neighborhoods between it and the city. It does suck that the bars and stuff that kids want to go to are usually north of the loop (no one is partying in the Garfield Park conservatory!), but the kids who want to go to U of C aren’t the type who care as much about that anyway. It’s the 20-something B schoolers who suffer that way. 😄 They are (or were) such vastly different schools that all this competition on DCUM is silly. They are both terrific schools in an absolutely fabulous world class super fun foodie unpretentious town, you can’t go wrong. This latest thing is just awful horrible and so sad, but don’t turn it into a reason NOT to go to college there, or not to choose U of C.

Agree with all the above, except Booth students all live in the Loop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Campus and the El are usually pretty safe, or as safe as any other big city. A lot of places are seeing a lot of violence this summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:South Side of Chicago has always been dangerous. Always will be, from the looks of it.

The rest of the city is just like any other city in America.

It's not a warzone. It's an under-served neighborhood that has families, babies, elderly people. Don't reduce it to something convenient, where it's the home of lots of folks.

Oh, okay...

Chicago Alderman Anthony Napolitano called the city a 'war zone' and ripped the city's leaders, particularly Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for the surge in crime.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9762319/Chicago-college-student-20-killed-stray-bullet-flew-subway-car-window.html

[Anonymous]

Not sure what that city offers other than crappy weather, gross pizza, a good art museum and aquarium, and hot dogs with weird toppings. The hardest of passes.