All I know from my relatives living there: Stay in the north. Avoid the south, unless you have an armored personnel carrier and full body armor.

Haha will certainly keep that in mind :) thank you!

Only my 4th year in the city but I've lived close by in the suburbs my whole life. The best part is definitely always having something to do. From concerts to museums to festivals, there's usually at least one event every week! I don't drive but public transportation will take you anywhere within the city and surrounding suburbs.

The downsides obviously include the high crime rate. Really though I've found that as long as you keep your head about you you'll be fine. Most people would list the cold as a negative but I honestly don't mind it. Snow used to be annoying to clean up in the suburbs but with heated sidewalks and crews downtown it's no biggie.

Probably the only real complaint I have living in the Loop is that everything closes early and it becomes a ghost town. Stores and restaurants close between 9-10PM on weekdays and even bars are usually only open to 1-2AM. There are exceptions, you just have to find them. Or be prepared to do your shopping early!

Yeah I don't think we would really have a problem. We'd prolly live in a pretty good area and we would have two vicious dogies. As far as that goes we are pretty big foodies. Are there some nice farmers markets and all that?


The day we spent there with ashes we didn't really run into the crime. Apparently the city had improved a lot.

It seems affordable. A lot of areas seem nice. And I looove the idea of having everything convenient.

Well I'm just a poor college student (don't let my splurging at MFF fool ya!), but I do know we have places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc. There are some straight-up farmer's markets too but I've yet to visit those.

Awesome thank you :) we try and eat pretty green and kind of healthy! So I just wanted to be sure

My mom was born in Chicago, but she's now fur, I am, but I was born in TN.