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| City is past its prime but still decent - 8/23/2011
I grew up in C-U (Champaign-Urbana) overall it is a good place to live but there are some caveats about the place. C-U is a University town and without the Universty it would probably be another dying midwest town. It does have an airport at Willard, and better yet, it has a good train station, the lines from which run up to Chicago, and down through Southern Illinois and on to New Orleans. Besides the students, the local demographics seems to me to be that of an aging town. There are lots of retirees of the university who remain in the town tied to a health insurance racket called Carle Care (which is really just a eugenics and money making operation run by Carle hospital - biggest racket going in C-U at the moment). Many of the neighborhoods were built during post WW2 boom and are aging and way past their prime, so a lot of these neighborhoods are starting to get really run down. What used to be really nice, happy neighborhoods when I was a kid are now looking like ghettos. At the same token there has been a lot of outward expansion and development of new neighborhood suburbs, so you see in C-U the classic inner city rot and outward expansion of newer suburbs that so many other cities are seeing. All activity around the city center around the University, there are lots of restaurants, clubs, venues for entertainment. There is a huge shopping area on North Neil street. If you like window shopping, and coffee shops, C-U has plenty of that in the downtown area by the train station which is the nicest I've seen anywhere. I am a product of Urbana High School and I don't know how much the education has changed there over the years, but from what I hear it is pretty good, and it wasn't bad when I went. Many of the children to that attend these schools are the sons and daughter of U of I staff, so education expectations are pretty high. C-U does have a dirt that seems to be getting worse in recent years. The race relations there is really bad. It was never really all that good even when I was young, but it seems to have gotten much worse, it is a highly segregated place. I don't know all causes of this, but the so-called 'polar bear hunting' attacks that had occurred around the city sure did not help, and even the local TV weatherman got beat up. Also, the winters there are very harsh and unforgiving, and the summers are super hot. It seems like in C-U only spring is the most comfortable time of the year, because the weather seems pretty extreme there. Anyway, I hope you all found this enlightening, I don't have much more to say about the place for now....[read more...]
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| Going to find about it - 3/9/2011
I need to know about the city.[read more...]
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| if your not a collage student - 2/23/2010
Don't move hear i have been stuck hear 4 years!. if you are a bartender or work any kind of hospitality the pay is for the students $4.85 hour and they will only hire students! this area is for the collage only there is nothing to do here and housing is high priced. I have lived in Arizona, Florida, this is far worst place to live! "I'm wanting to move to new mexico"[read more...]
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| Family Town - 7/29/2009
Champaign is a wonderful place to raise a family. Often you miss the big city excitement. But there are TONS of restaurants. The movie theatre's are very nice. Good colleges. Middle and highschool's could do a little better, but they do have good private schools for reasonable prices. I have been all over the country and I do love it for my family. Once the kids are gone, we will rethink staying here though![read more...]
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| champaign, illinois - 7/10/2008
Champaign-urbana is a great place to raise a family, the cost of living is fairly inexpensive, it`s not hard to gain employment, and the college sports keeps our town busy in the fall.[read more...]
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| Champaign=okay - 7/7/2008
Nice sized town, good for art and cultural activities. Weather is not great, winters are long, cold and dark. Summers are hot and humid. Traffic is terrible for a medium sized town. Good place for college sports. Housing is affordable.[read more...]
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| Best of both worlds! - 2/5/2007
I've lived in the Champaign area for a decade, and I can't imagine living anywhere else. The University of Illinois is a constant hub of activity, from Division 1 collegiate sports to cerebral lecture opportunities and fantastic museums. Downtown Champaign offers great nightlife and unique boutiques in a pedestrian-friendly environment. This area is big enough to have a great amount of diversity, but small enough that the owners of the stores you patronize will remember your name and greet you with a smile. It's a terrific place to live and work![read more...]
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| Still Racial Attacks? - 7/23/2006
I went to college there in the 90s; at the time, many black gangs were targeting single white men walking at night and attacking them. Naturally, this was overlooked by the press as the victims obviously deserved it because they're white. Does this sort of thing still happen in enlighted Champaign?
Champaign is definitely an American crap town![read more...]
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| Champaign's bad - 7/14/2006
Crime is on the rise. Violent crimes (murders) have more than doubled in the year.[read more...]
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| Good and bad - 3/5/2006
Pros: Low cost of living, educated population, improved downtown nightlife, the Krannert Center of the Performing Arts is very nice, there are university related sporting events, some interesting neighborhoods in the downtown area with brick-paved streets and large hardwood trees.
Cons: Lack of interesting outdoor recreation, the southern U of I campus smells like cow feces, the Northwest part of town has a putrid, rot smell that comes from A.C. Humco (a local soybean processing plant), lack of gainful employment despite the presence of the University, the weather can be harsh if you are not used to winters in the midwest.[read more...]
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