<p>JHS:
Hey! – don’t tar me with the brush you mean for pollutioncontrol. </p>
<p>I don’t see that things in Hyde Park are all that different - Kenwood and Woodlawn were always a bit more accessible, around IIT and Mercy there was always a small island of possibility, and over the last 2 decades the development of the ‘near South Side’ into a condo-ized and loft-ized neigborhood has proceeded apace. I still don’t see that U of C students hang out in and travel to the area between Kenwood and downtown very much – nor do they have reason to (as I said further along in the post which pollutioncontrol quoted). </p>
<p>I’m not surprised that UofC students currently do more community service in Kenwood and Woodlawn than they did in the past. I believe trends like that are common at many Universities – not least Yale, where there certainly wasn’t the near-universal participation in community service even as recently as the 90’s, let alone before that. (‘Near-universal’ means I bet it’s well over 50% and I’m too lazy to look it up.)</p>
<p>I would have no special, crime-related compunctions about sending a child of mine to U of C or to Yale, although I would definitely tell them in either case to use common sense (i.e., travel in groups, maybe take a cab) when travelling through questionable areas. Pollutioncontrol seems to have some exceptional requirements related to long-distance running. If I had a daughter who liked to do solo long-distance dirt-trail running regularly anywhere in the US, I’d worry - statistically probably not a problem but the outlier possibilities are scary. And that has nothing to do with urban, black, high-crime, Hispanic or any other description of New Haven or Chicago neighborhoods…</p>