<p>jakey and misstep…not up yet?</p>
<p>bclintonk, you are one of the posters I respect most on this site–when you are using data to support your ideas. But on the Evanston vs. Ann Arbor topic, you are somehow full of misinformation. You may have lived in Chicago proper for a few years; many of us here attended NU as students, which is more relevant to the OP’s issue. Even 30 years ago when I was there it was not a “sleepy bedroom community,” nor was there any less access to the city than there is now. “Sleepy bedroom communities” do not share urban attributes and public transportation systems and a fluid population the way Evanston does with Chicago. I have friends who still live there, and I am amazed at how Evanston has completely transformed its downtown over the past few decades, with a multiplex, tons of new restaurants, great stores, farmers’ markets, etc. Is it a freestanding “college town”? Not the way Ann Arbor or Madison is. Is there more, on the whole, for students to take advantage of? Heck, yeah. It’s adjacent to (essentially part of) one of the best cities in the U.S., especially for people without cars (i.e., students). And even without leaving campus, there is nothing a student can’t find right there.</p>
<p>"“Sleepy bedroom communities” do not share urban attributes and public transportation systems and a fluid population the way Evanston does with Chicago."</p>
<p>I agree with the above. Sleepy bedroom communities also don’t have some unsavory neighborhoods either; another attribute that Evanston shares with Chicago. This is not to suggest that all of Evanston is dangerous, it certainly isn’t, but I would’t want to live on the southern end near Rogers Park or parts of the western side of town.</p>
<p>“jakey and misstep…not up yet?”</p>
<p>I think the jig is up for allcapella et al.</p>
<p>I think this comes down to personal preference. Ann Arbor has more to offer students than Evanston, but if one is willing to drive 20-30 minutes, Chicago has a great deal to offer. Then again, so do suburbs of Detroit that are easily accessible to Michigan students (30-45 minute drive) such as Troy, Rochester, Birmingham and Royal Oak to name a few. I cannot think of any major artistic, musical or cultural tour that passes by Chicago without passing by Detroit. Royal Oak has a very charming and happening social scene with great clubs while Troy has excellent shopping options. </p>
<p>This said, it is one thing to have access to the amenities of a major city nearby (and in this regard, I give the leg up to Northwestern), and it is an entirely different thing to have access to a great college town are your doorstep (here, Michigan wins). Liberty, Washington, South University, State and Main streets are filled with literally hundreds of venues for students to choose from…all within a 15 minute walk from the Michigan campus. People do not realize how seldom students have to actually take advantage of a large city nearby. I used to visit Chicago once every 2-4 weeks when I was in college (anywhere from 7-10 times per academic year). My friends at Northwestern did not seem to visit Chicago more often than I! </p>
<p>Honestly, I think both universities are ideally located. I would always recommend fit when considering those two universities, unless one wishes to go into a program that is clearly stronger at one of the schools (such as Journalism at Northwestern).</p>
<p>“Haha! But there are 21 sections listed with lecture at same time with same instructor. 22 is limit for discussion section. Lecture portion can be surmised to be 22 students x 21 sections = 462 students.”</p>
<p>years later and your logic is still poor at best. limit != actual enrollment. Actual enrollment is usually lower at JHU based on my FIRSTHAND experience and NOT Speculation. On the other hand, Berkeley’s 500 “limit” in bio is actually 553 enrolled students as attested to by students in Berkeley’s forum.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>Most students take the subway instead of driving. There are 3 subway stops that are within 5-10 min walk from NU campus. At certain times, the trains even run as express. The entire purple line was made specificly for Evanston (so much for the bedroom community lable from bclintonk)! There are plenty who go to Chicago during the week and virtually every weekend; some have internships/part-time work there while a few even participate in research at the med school.</p>
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Exactly. With its bustling downtown area and sketchy parts in the west (not where Northwestern/downtown is), Evanston is more like one of Chicago’s lakefront neigbhorhoods than one of the typical North Shore suburbs. The surrounding communities (including Rogers Park of Chicago) come to Evanston for the dining options. There are actually people who think Evanston should be annexed by Chicago and if annexation in Illinois were easy today, Evanston would have been the #1 target.</p>
<p>“Exactly. With its bustling downtown area and sketchy parts in the west (not where Northwestern/downtown is), Evanston is more like one of Chicago’s lakefront neigbhorhoods than one of the typical North Shore suburbs.”</p>
<p>I totally agree with the above statement. Ann Arbor does not have “sketchy parts.” The entire city is relatively safe from one end to the other. As a student, the city is yours to explore without reservations. Ann Arbor is definitely a city unto itself; there are over 100,000 people living there and it even has its own suburbs. In terms of student happiness, the town thrives on the university and is very welcoming to all of those involved with the school. Ann Arbor is the University of Michigan and visa versa. Evanston is a suburb. It would survive if NU closed down tomorrow. That is the difference to me when comparing these two campuses.</p>
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<p>Oh, please. This is just so over the top. Evanston has no desire to be annexed to Chicago. People move there for the same reason people move to other suburbs–to be near enough the city to be able to take part in the economic vitality of the city, but not part of it in their residential, educational, and political lives. Nor, for that matter, has anyone in Chicago ever expressed a desire to annex Evanston; at least not in the last century or so. The prevailing view in the city seems to be, who needs 'em? They chose to make a separate life elsewhere; let 'em wallow in it.</p>
<p>As for the idea that CTA transit connections give Evanston some special relationship with the city, that’s equally silly. The CTA connects to a number of older suburbs: Evanston, Skokie, Oak Park, Forest Park, Cicero. Those transit connections are there precisely because these are traditionally bedroom communities: people live in the suburbs and work downtown. </p>
<p>As for the vaunted CTA Purple Line service: this is an express rush-hour-only service between Evanston and the Loop, clearly scheduled to whisk Evanston’s bedroom community commuters between their suburban homes and jobs downtown. It doesn’t run between Evanston and downtown between mid-morning and mid-afternoon on weekdays, nor does it run between Evanston and downtown after 7pm. Nor does it run between Evanston and downtown at any time during the weekends. It does, however, operate local service within Evanston during mid-day, evening, and weekend hours, operating as one of several suburban feeder lines connecting to the Red Line, one of the CTA’s principal rail lines, which tellingly has its terminus in the city, in East Rogers Park. So yes, you can in fact get to Chicago by CTA rail, by taking a minor suburban feeder line to a point in the city where you can connect to urban rail service. Some suburban bedroom communities–Oak Park, Forest Park, Cicero–actually have better connections to the city by virtue of being on, or the terminus of, some of the CTA’s main rail lines. Evanston is served by a suburban feeder line that doubles as a weekday rush-hour-only commuter line. Whoop-de-doo. That doesn’t make it Chicago, or “like one of Chicago’s lakefront neighborhoods.” That’s wishful thinking, at best, but not wishful thinking that’s shared by a majority of Evanston residents.</p>
<p>As for the idea that Evanston is so rich with culinary opportunities that people flock from city neighborhoods to dine in Evanston–well, all I can say is, what’re you smokin’? I lived for 6 years in East Rogers Park–the city neighborhood closest to Evanston (and separated from it, by the way, by a very large cemetery). I want to say that in those six years I had dinner in Evanston only once, but I’m not absolutely certain; it may have been twice. In any event, it was not memorable, and obviously not enough to draw me back. And this was at a point in my life when I was single and had a very active social life, as a consequence of which I was eating dinner in restaurants maybe 3 or 4 times a week on average. So let’s be generous and say it was twice I ate in Evanston, out of roughly 1,000 restaurant meals during that period. Hmmm, that seems to work out to something like 2/10 of 1%. So while it was technically true that I, as a city resident, did on occasion dine in Evanston, that’s hardly enough to make Evanston part of the city. I’m quite certain that during those 6 years I ate more frequently in Ann Arbor than in Evanston, not to mention places like New Buffalo, MI, Madison, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. Nor do I think I was unrepresentative in that regard. I honestly don’t think I ever heard a single friend, co-worker, date, acquaintance, or whatever, say, “Hey, I know this great little place in Evanston, let’s go get a bite to eat.” C’mon, that’s ridiculous. Evanston is just not on the radar screen of city residents, unless they have prior ties to it (e.g., by virtue of being NU alums). It’s just a complete non-entity as far as people in Chicago are concerned. No more so than other bedroom communities, but it’s not as if it holds some special place in Chicagoans’ hearts, either. They just ignore it. (And by the way, in the 4-5 years I lived in other Chicago neighborhoods, further south along the lakefront, I’m quite certain I never ate in Evanston even one; I remember driving up there once, shortly after I moved to the city, and spent about an hour so so looking around, deciding it wasn’t anyplace special, and never had a desire to go back, which is exactly how I felt about all of Chicago’s other suburbs, and exactly how everyone I knew in the city felt). </p>
<p>I’m not saying Evanston’s a terrible place. I’ve already said it’s livelier than the typical North Shore bedroom community–but its permanent resident population (i.e., everyone except NU students) definitely identifies far more with the North Shore than with the city. The people I know who live there like to think of Evanston as the urbane, slightly more urbanized anchor of the North Shore, with more urban amenities. I suspect its North Shore neighbors don’t look up to it in quite that way; they see it as infected with some of the same urban ills as Chicago, but neither fish nor fowl–neither an entirely upscale lilywhite North Shore suburb like Winnetka, nor a city neighborhood, but something of a hybrid, a suburb with some upscale sections, especially around NU, but also with urban ills. There’s nothing unique about that; it’s true of a lot of aging suburbs in almost every major metropolitan area. But showing signs of wear and tear and urban distress doesn’t make it part of the city; it’s still a suburbs, and in part precisely because of the transit connections, a quintessential bedroom community (unlike some newer suburbs like Naperville, which tend to be core job centers in their own right). People in the city, as I’ve said, just don’t care enough to have thoughts on the matter; to them, Evanston is pretty much “out of sight, out of mind.”</p>
<p>bclintonk, I agree that the CTA transit doesn’t give Evanston any “special relationship with the city.” </p>
<p>But the bigger point is: Students at NU have two public transit options just steps from campus (the Metra and the El / Purple Line) to get to everything that Chicago has to offer. Alexandre mentioned other suburbs of Detroit (Royal Oak, Troy) that have a lot to offer students - that may be true, I’ll take his word for that – but are those places accessible without a car? </p>
<p>Your anecdotes from 25 years ago about the restaurant scene in Evanston are irrelevant – just as my college-rememberings of Evanston are irrelevant to Evanston TODAY. It is clearly the restaurant capital of the North Shore. Yes, when I was there 25 years ago, the restaurants were limited to McD, BK, a couple pizzerias and diners, a Mexican restaurant or two, and oddly enough a very upscale restaurant near campus that no one could possibly afford. No one thought of Evanston as a place to go for dinner. But so what? It’s not at all like that today. There are tons of excellent restaurants at all price levels, just like Ann Arbor offers. Ann Arbor is plenty charming; there is no need to spread mistruths about Evanston just because you’re upset that someone might have a personal preference for NU / Evanston / Chicago over Michigan / Ann Arbor / Detroit. They’re both great schools. People will have different preferences for different reasons. So be it. Trying to “win” the NU / Michigan debate with such fervor is just a little too Blue Devil like.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, there is no convenient public transport from Ann Arbor to Detroit. The main reason for that is because Ann Arbor is not a suburb. It is a stand alone city. Ann Arbor has its own Transportation Authority that does not go beyond Detroit Metro Airport, and the Detroit Transportation Authority does not extend anywhere near Ann Arbor. </p>
<p>That being said, Ann Arbor has so much to offer, that the only reason Michigan students would leave Ann Arbor is to make a run for the Canadian border that’s less than an hour drive (lower legal drinking age), or to participate in a major event (auto-show, music concert etc…). In all of these cases, students will drive or be driven by friends.</p>
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bclintonk,
You completely missed the point. Those other places you listed got only 1 or 2 stops. But for Evanston, which is less than 4 miles long, there is a whole purple line with NINE STATIONS COVERING LESS THAN 4 MILES; why do you think there are that many stations and express trains during rush hours? Because of demand and simple economics. There’s a great flow of passengers travelling between Evanston and Chicago. You don’t need 9 stations for a tiny area if it’s just a commuter train for a bedroom community. </p>
<p>As for Chicago annexation, that’s more a hyperbole than anything else. Of course Evanston residents wouldn’t want that. They got better school system and are doing just fine. I was just to echoing rjkofnovi’s thought that Evanston is pretty urban and <em>looks</em> like part of Chicago. </p>
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The only reason you think your experience 25 years ago has any relevance whatsoever is that you want to bash Evanston; to do so, there’s nothing that sounds more convincing than personal experience that makes you sound like an authority. Little did others know that it’s 25 years ago!! Those modern high-rise condos in Evanston downtown weren’t even there. Like Pizzzagirl said, Ann Arbor is a great college town; but there’s no need to bash other places just because most CC members on this thread gave their nods to other schools instead of your alma mater.</p>
<p>Honestly, bclintonk:
- Relying on having eaten once or twice in Evanston 25 years ago, when those of us who lived in Evanston 25 years ago AGREE it didn’t have a lot of offerings then – but now it does?
- Googling the Purple Line route and claiming that we were claiming that the Purple Line gave Evanston a “special relationship” and then getting all worked up that the Purple Line connects with the Red Line when the point is - Evanston has easy public transit accessibility to a major city (and Ann Arbor has neither public transit accessibility nor a close major city that most students will want to visit)?
- Mentioning the Rogers Park / Evanston border cemetery – what does that have to do with anything?
- Acting as though we were claiming that Evanston has some special super-de-duper share of mind in the Chicago area?
- Gratuitious slams on the rest of Chicago suburbs as “all being the same” - which says more about your lack of observation than anything else?</p>
<p>I’ve respected your posts highly over the years - but I think you kind of jumped the shark on this one. The grasp-at-straws-to-attack-other-schools is what I’d expect from Duke boosters and Berkeley boosters on these boards. Honestly, I thought goldenboy had given you some of his Kool-Aid. Michigan’s a fine school. It’s different from Northwestern in some significant ways. One is the size of the campus / student body and the relative “thickness” or density of smart students within that student body. The other is suburb-of-major-city versus college-town-near-a-more-faded-city. You can just put the facts out there and let people have their opinions, you know. Some will choose NU and some will choose Michigan and it’s really all good. But this “well, none of my city friends 25 years ago ever thought about or ate in Evanston, and we all think Chicago suburbs suck, so THERE!” – please.</p>
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<p>I missed this. You went to U of C for grad school, right? So of course you wouldn’t be schlepping up to Evanston for much of anything unless you had a specific reason to be there. The two areas are a good hour apart by the time you put rush hour traffic there and you’ve got a major city in between. That finding “means” nothing. There’s little reason for Evanston students to schlep down to Hyde Park, either, in the absence of a specific reason. You can’t conclude anything from that.</p>
<p>Right. The point is not that Evanston has to be a draw for everyone in the entire city of Chicago, but that it offers an appealing range of dining and other options for people who live there–i.e. permanent residents and NU students. And it does.</p>
<p>So OP, while Ann Arbor is a nice city with plenty of offer to the undergraduate students of Michigan, Evanston has drastically changed in the years since some CC posters have visited it. I hope this information has assisted you in concluding which university is better for potential econ./chemistry majors.</p>
<p>I worked in Western Michigan from 2002-2004. During that period, I visited Evanston often to sample Chef Grant Achatz’ gum-smacking-good cuisine at Trio, which was located on Hinman Avenue in Evanston. Achatz has since left Evanston (and Trio has closed down) and opened Alinea in Chicago (in my opinion the best restaurant in North America), but during his time at Trio, it was obviously considered the hottest restaurant in the United States. Not bad for little old Evanston. I have been thinking of duplicating that feat in Ann Arbor. Now I just need to find a chef of Achatz’ skill level to join the team!!!</p>