Urban Living. Best Place in the U.S?

Originally Posted by mafoofan

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Not Chicago. Whatever its other positives, I would not count the 'urban living' experience as one of them.

Chicago is perhaps the easiest 'urban' city to just get by in. You can live there for next to nothing, which has been a boon for the arts and music in the past, but now has created one of the most abject gulfs between the haves and have nots in the US. Also, the current city government is probably the closest ever to perfecting Stalinism with a level of corruption that would make Boss Tweed envious.

Originally Posted by unpainted huffheinz

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Chicago is perhaps the easiest 'urban' city to just get by in. You can live there for next to nothing, which has been a boon for the arts and music in the past, but now has created one of the most abject gulfs between the haves and have nots in the US. Also, the current city government is probably the closest ever to perfecting Stalinism with a level of corruption that would make Boss Tweed envious.

I am confused by both your and mafoofans comment. I lived there for 3 years at the corner of Chicago and Wabash, for just under 3K/month (1 bedroom + office) and another 240/month for parking. I don't consider that next to nothing and I also consider it to be pretty urban, since I did not need a car, I could walk to countless excellent restaurants, cabs readily available (cab light from the doorman), and the red line was a block away which got me to everything else incuding both airports.

Now if you live in some shitburb like wicker park or some other god awful northern suburb or near north or whatever they call the wanna be hip areas that require you to drive or cab everywhere, then yes it probably doesn't feel very urban and probably cheap. But for the right money/location balance I think the OP could be happy in Chicago.

Local politics don't concern me and it is doubtful the OP cares unless he decides to stay there forever, which is doubtful.

Originally Posted by Agnacious

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I am confused by both your and mafoofans comment. I lived there for 3 years at the corner of Chicago and Wabash, for just under 3K/month (1 bedroom + office) and another 240/month for parking. I don't consider that next to nothing and I also consider it to be pretty urban, since I did not need a car, I could walk to countless excellent restaurants, cabs readily available (cab light from the doorman), and the red line was a block away which got me to everything else incuding both airports.

Now if you live in some shitburb like wicker park or some other god awful northern suburb or near north or whatever they call the wanna be hip areas that require you to drive or cab everywhere, then yes it probably doesn't feel very urban and probably cheap. But for the right money/location balance I think the OP could be happy in Chicago.

Local politics don't concern me and it is doubtful the OP cares unless he decides to stay there forever, which is doubtful.

Dude, I have a monthly budget of $1100 for everything (literally, everything) and live in Wrigleyville. I'm a block off the red line, in a very "hopping" section of the city. I consider my area to be quite urban, although less so than where you used to live obviously, and I am definitely able to live on next to nothing.

Originally Posted by SField

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Stuyvesant isn't rent controlled anymore. It's now 3500K+ for a 1 bedroom complete with mice. Extremely safe though and the apartments look half decent.

It isn't? I thought Met Life had some sort of tax exemption on it and had to keep it rent controlled. I guess I was wrong. Did MetLife eventually sell it or something?

I think Boston meets all of your (the OP) criteria. If you found Boston proper to be out of your budget in terms of living expenses, you could live in one of the surrounding neighborhoods like Brighton. It's still on the green line, lot's of young people, coffee houses, live music, etc., and it's easy access to any part of the city.

Originally Posted by Agnacious

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I am confused by both your and mafoofans comment. I lived there for 3 years at the corner of Chicago and Wabash, for just under 3K/month (1 bedroom + office) and another 240/month for parking. I don't consider that next to nothing and I also consider it to be pretty urban, since I did not need a car, I could walk to countless excellent restaurants, cabs readily available (cab light from the doorman), and the red line was a block away which got me to everything else incuding both airports. Now if you live in some shitburb like wicker park or some other god awful northern suburb or near north or whatever they call the wanna be hip areas that require you to drive or cab everywhere, then yes it probably doesn't feel very urban and probably cheap. But for the right money/location balance I think the OP could be happy in Chicago. Local politics don't concern me and it is doubtful the OP cares unless he decides to stay there forever, which is doubtful.
Near North is nice, and not cheap like Wickerpark. There are some of the nicest cribs in the city there (near North) and the Clark/Lasalle street buses. Not to mention it's a $5 taxi ride down town... Chicago and Wabash 1 bedroom for $3,000? That must have been a much nice apartment lol

Originally Posted by Agnacious

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I am confused by both your and mafoofans comment. I lived there for 3 years at the corner of Chicago and Wabash, for just under 3K/month (1 bedroom + office) and another 240/month for parking. I don't consider that next to nothing and I also consider it to be pretty urban, since I did not need a car, I could walk to countless excellent restaurants, cabs readily available (cab light from the doorman), and the red line was a block away which got me to everything else incuding both airports.

It actually sounds like you don't mind being ripped off for a place to live. $3k for a one bedroom in Chicago is the extreme upper end.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont

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In my OP I meant public transportation not public housing.

I think you can scratch any city the southeast then. Good public transportation doesn't exist there.

Originally Posted by mikemas22

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It isn't? I thought Met Life had some sort of tax exemption on it and had to keep it rent controlled. I guess I was wrong. Did MetLife eventually sell it or something?

It was bought up very recently and everything has been renovated. They started kicking out old long time residents a while ago.

Originally Posted by unpainted huffheinz

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It actually sounds like you don't mind being ripped off for a place to live. $3k for a one bedroom in Chicago is the extreme upper end.

Yes, 3k a month is certainly upper end, but not nearly the top end. It isn't like New York but it isn't cheap either.

Originally Posted by chronoaug

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http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifesty...p-cities_N.htm


Suck it!

This has got to be some kind of joke. I've probably got a dozen friends who went to UF, and not a single one stayed after graduation, nor do they have any desire to ever return. They loved their college years, but no one wants to live there when they hit adulthood.

Originally Posted by scnupe7

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I think you can scratch any city the southeast then. Good public transportation doesn't exist there.

Agreed. There are a number of places in the south I'd love to live (Savannah, Atlanta, maybe Charleston, I'd even stay in Athens), but the lack of public transportation is something you just have to accept. This is particularly awful in Atlanta, a city that has no excuse for its failure to expand MARTA.

Philly pretty much sucks, havent you seen those Southwest commercials
"come to Philly, we have the cheesesteak! what else? the liberty bell! what else? cheesesteak!" thats about it...

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Dude, I have a monthly budget of $1100 for everything (literally, everything) and live in Wrigleyville. I'm a block off the red line, in a very "hopping" section of the city. I consider my area to be quite urban, although less so than where you used to live obviously, and I am definitely able to live on next to nothing.

I have no doubt you can live inexpensively, it just is not what I would consider very urban, that area feels more like suburbs to me, which I don't care for.

The reason I phrased my answer the way I did was people from outside the area asking about urban area probably are thinking along the lines of where I was. I always hear people talking about Chicago and it is either Chicago sucks it's like NY for small timers, or Chicago is awesome the women are all 10's and it is cheap.

Then to find that neither live in what I would call Chicago proper (and a Chicago 10 is an everywhere else 7). So I was giving a data point on the Chicago urban full monty in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Cavalier

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Near North is nice, and not cheap like Wickerpark. There are some of the nicest cribs in the city there (near North) and the Clark/Lasalle street buses. Not to mention it's a $5 taxi ride down town...

Chicago and Wabash 1 bedroom for $3,000? That must have been a much nice apartment lol

Yes it was nice, without the $5 cab ride downtown, because I was already there. Why not go further out and it would only be a $10 cab ride and cheaper yet. I honestly don't know much about the northern areas or near north, or bywater (no that's New Orleans) because I never had a reason to go there. They on the other hand had a reason to come to my area so since I hate suburbs it was another reason to live where I did.

Originally Posted by unpainted huffheinz

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It actually sounds like you don't mind being ripped off for a place to live. $3k for a one bedroom in Chicago is the extreme upper end.

I don't mind paying for convienence. It is a full service kind of place so there were extras that factored into the cost. There were less expensive units, I think there was a studio for $2K/month, but that was not for me. There was also a good mix of people, mostly in the 30-50 range that created a nice environment to live in.

Originally Posted by SField

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Yes, 3k a month is certainly upper end, but not nearly the top end. It isn't like New York but it isn't cheap either.

There were more expensive places to be sure. I was on what I consider to be the edge of Chicago proper but still had the conviences. I wanted to point out it was not all suck, and not all cheap rents. Ultimately the OP has to decide what value he puts on various aspects of urban living.

3k a month for a nice place, decent sized in Chicago seems about right. It's unreasonable to believe you're going to get a nice place downtown that's decent sized for much less.

I don't know how nice the poster's place was in wrig for $1100, but what you pay for is what ya get. I pay more than 1100 in Columbus to live downtown-granted my place is over 1400sq feet and has 20 ft ceilings. Right downtown in any city is going to be expensive.