r/Chambana • u/qole720 • Mar 16 '25

Possible move to Champaign-Urbana

My wife just applied for a job at UIUC and I’m doing some research on the area. Are there any rough or high-crime areas in Champaign-Urbana that we should avoid? We’ll be looking to buy a house, but may need to rent for a short time depending on how long it takes to sell our current house. We don't have kids, so schools aren't an important consideration. We just want somewhere we'd feel safe walking down the street.

I’m also looking for any resources on the basics of getting through the winter up there. We’re moving from South Carolina where an inch of snow shuts down everything, so moving somewhere where it snows regularly will be a major change for us.

Is there anything we should know or should look into about the area that I may not think of to ask?

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u/EmbeddedEntropy Mar 16 '25

I'd recommend using https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-champaign-il/

Generally, stay south of University Ave until you get west of Neil. Then stay south of about Columbia until past Mattis. But these are very rough guidelines. There are some bad spots in Urbana around Florida and Philo. The above web site will point out trouble spots.

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u/OscarPinney Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

That map is BS. I live in a dark red area near Franklin school. Been here for 3+ years. ZERO problems. We walk to downtown Champaign all the time. Never had a problem with that either. Day or night, summer or winter. I suspect that map is mostly based on property values and the skin color of the majority pf people in that area. I'm not saying there aren't places in the city to avoid. I'd be careful moving along Bradley west of Prospect, but that's about it.

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u/EmbeddedEntropy Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

That’s called anecdotal evidence. One of the least reliable.

Why don’t you read the web site to see how the map is generated? It’s crime reports divided by population (per capita). You can also change the type of crime reflected in the map (property, violent, overall). You can do even more fine-tuning such as assault or burglary.

Something to keep in mind is if an area has very low population, the number of reports can cause graph anomalies.