Moving across states is not easy, especially when you are not sure which state you are going to move to. We ended up becoming certain, and then scrambled to find an apartment. The market became much tighter for a reasonably-priced apartment, and my agent got quite tired of me since I told him we would sign and that ended up falling through. He ended up just ignoring me, which was an okay outcome. Another agent, this time one who exclusively works with “managed buildings,” was quite cheery and helpful but ultimately I could not budget for one of these “managed” properties. I now live across the street from one that once seemed promising!
I had no clue about Chicago’s neighborhoods before moving in, except that vaguely all the Big 10 grads live in Gold Coast, Lincoln Park is historically bougie, Hyde Park Obama, and the South Side can have a reputation. We came down to Chicago twice, once for an event, and another to inspect neighborhoods to live in. We liked an apartment online (2217 W Madison), but in person, we discovered that it was actually in a neighborhood surrounded by empty parking lots and that the sidewalks were unkempt. We really liked the quiet and serene converted fruit markets at University Village, but we hesitated a while longer so those passed us up.
There was one apartment that really caught my eye in Printers Row, at the Transporation Building. A friend of mine has been living in Printers Row for a year now and he has been enjoying it, so I asked him if he would recommend it. Keep in mind, at the time I frankly had no idea what to expect about the city. He said it was nice, but since our agent at the time only worked with listings on his portal, we passed up that Transportation Building property.
We also wanted to be close to UIC’s medical school (hint: the Blue Line station is a 15 minute walk… the medical district is not the most accessible place in the world) and close to a mosque for Fajr and Isha prayer. Depending on the transit friendliness of the neighborhood, parking was important. This led us to wildly expand our search: we needed a place to live and we needed it fast.
We dropped many of the pretenses we held while shopping. Our budget went up a lot, we ended up not caring about a parking, a gym, a second bedroom, even a bedroom door. We did end up in Printers Row/South Loop, which was a good choice. It is close to transit to the whole city, close to the masjid, and an easy trip to the medical school. It is not a hip neighborhood by any means and there is probably an undersupply of hotels here. It is super residential, but that brings the perk of being uber-close to one of the few Trader Joe’s in the city.
South Loop is a very interesting neighborhood, because it is full of very new construction. There are very few buildings older than the 80s. Even Grant Park is a newer park - you can tell because the park planners had too many ideas when they were building the park and it feels boring (placemaking is overrated). It used to be full of railyards and printing presses and other industry. As a result, there were no incumbents to oppose new construction, and the neighborhood filled with towers. So despite being incredibly proximate to the Loop, and all the transit, and with better-quality housing, the prices are still comparatively low per-square foot compared to hip neighborhoods like Wicker Park. Long live more housing!