JHS

The University of Chicago campus, unlike, say, Columbia's, or even USC, is very open to the surrounding community. Apart from a couple blocks of quads, university buildings are interwoven with non-university buildings across an area of several square miles, and several undergraduate dormitories are "off campus". Hyde Park and Kenwood, while not anything like the South Bronx, are diverse from both a racial and an economic standpoint. Far from having a "lack of ability to integrate into the immediate surrounding community", integrating into the immediate surrounding community is a daily necessity for most Chicago students. In addition, they travel all over the city on public transportation, and many recent grads who stay in Chicago wind up living in neighborhoods like Pilsen, which are not in the least hermetically sealed enclaves of privilege.

Each urban university is slightly different. Chicago is nothing like Temple, where you could get a tan from the klieg lights that shine 24 hours a day in the main campus areas, and there are blocks within half a mile of the center of campus that look like something left over from the Bosnian civil war. But it sure ain't Princeton or Stanford, either. As many have said, it's safe in the way that urban places can be safe, but it's not a college where someone who is freaked out by urban settings and urban dangers is going to feel completely comfortable.

One relatively recent grad I know came from a small town in Minnesota. He liked the education at Chicago, but always felt nervous living there, and his idea of a great place to live is represented by Cornell, where he went to graduate school. Now 30, he is just beginning to feel OK about living in a city, but he lives in a luxury high-rise in a rich neighborhood, and reverse-commutes to a job in the near suburbs. Nothing bad ever happened to him in Hyde Park, but all he remembers about it is the (irrational, subjective) fear he felt.

If that sounds like you, you probably should consider other options. If you can deal with it -- if you wouldn't mind going to Yale, or Penn, or USC, for example -- then, really, Chicago is just fine.

newmassdad

JHS,

Well put.

The only thing I would add is that some of the environment around the university has changed markedly over the past 25 years.

When I attended the GSB in the early 1980s, the area north of 47th street was a very tough area, one where no UofC student would go, even to drive through. This tough area extended all the way to Chinatown, even further north, perhaps - I never really looked hard.

Back then, south of campus in Woodlawn, there was still a thriving though poor community, with shops under the EL along 63rd street. The area was pretty tough, though. Meanwhile, South Shore was an interesting enclave of affordable housing, and still a rather integrated community. Garfield/55th to the Ryan was still full of apartments, stores and even an A&P near the EL stop, but no one from UofC used the EL at the Ryan, and the area south of Washington Park and east of Cottage Grove (Englewood) was a very tough neighborhood. And the Ryan from 55th north to downtown was lined with high rise low income housing.

In general, the university was an oasis surrounded by rather tough areas, (but we did have two grocery stores in Hyde Park!)

Flash forward to 2005, when I lived in Hyde Park for a year. All the low income projects, including the high rises along the Ryan, are gone (save for one!). The area west of campus along Garfield is largely vacant land and ripe for re-development. Not safe at all, but not dangerous like it used to be. Students use the El at the Ryan and take the Garfield bus to campus all the time. The area north of the campus, all the way to downtown, is rapidly gentrifying. We used to bicycle and walk the dog through areas we would have never set foot in 20 years ago. And because so many members of the UofC community are living up there, the U police have expanded their patrol zone way north of 47th.

South of 61st, most of the community is gone.

But, the removal of the low income projects on the S. Side had some negative impact too. Some of those displaced moved to South Shore, so the neighborhood has had a real decline in safety. There has been quite a bit of gang activity along and west of Drexel, especially north of 53rd. Englewood is, if anything, worse than it used to be.

My point? The area around Hyde Park has changed radically over the past 10-15 years. A lot of folks have perceptions formed in their years on campus and they may not be relevant now.

It is still an urban campus. It is still an oasis of affluence with serious poverty nearby. But it is no longer an oasis.

Aardvark

Thanks for everybody's thoughts. They have been very helpful and gives us some things to pay attention to on our june visit.