Picking a Chicago neighborhood 2015 Edition

If you're reliant on the trains and buses, don't move to Rogers Park thinking you'll be able to easily visit friends or reach amenities in Logan Square (or vice versa). You could, frankly, leave off the bit about reliance on trains and buses. When you get down to it, there are many Chicagos, and traveling between them can be as time consuming and maddening as visiting a distant suburb, even if you have a car.

Two questions: 1) What kind of arts scene do you need, and how do you want to engage with it? 2) Where are you staying when you visit? 2. Cheap. I don't mind if a neighborhood is perceived to be dangerous. I've lived in some rough places. Frugality is tied with good access to public transit for my requirements. Looking to spend no more than about $750 per month. For frugality and abundant transit, consider Uptown. It doesn't have its own super-coherent and developed arts scene, but it's really close to Andersonville--they bleed into each other on Andersonville's south edge. It is red-line El proximate and has 3 major bus lines North-South, and a bunch of major bus lines East-West. It's home to three major music venues: the Riviera, the Aragon, and the Green Mill. Lately it is home to a lot of new restaurants, too. It also has a Target that is right on an El stop, which is a nicer amenity than I ever would have thought. God I love the Wilson Yard Target (Tip from a local: A lot of super-cheap apartments tagged "Andersonville" are actually more properly speaking in Edgewater and Uptown. Landlords call them "Andersonville" because, well, racism basically.) Rogers Park is cheap and man, they are really trying to have an arts scene, but as my friends are often wont to say, "Stop trying to make 'Rogers Park' happen!" It is *beautiful* and a great place to live but it does not have a big artsy scene or at least not yet. Also, transit becomes bus-only and spotty anywhere west of Clark St. Additionally, because of my visual impairment, I am wondering if someone could give me a general description of the layout of the city. It's a big place, and maps obviously aren't cutting it for me. It's all conceptual right now, and I am having trouble visualizing the places in relation to one another. The layout of the city is rather sprawling but like phunniemee says, our grid is pretty solid and easy to deal with. Remember too that the entire place is bounded on the East by the lake, so if you're anywhere near the water you can orient yourself immediately. I don't drive, so I don't often even consider the grid except when I'm figuring out a specific address. I instead visualize the city as fanning out West from the lake. One great shorthand for this view, if atlas-type maps aren't cutting it, is to look at the CTA train maps: the trains radiate out from the Loop. Looking at that map, you'll see that your prospective neighborhoods are all fairly far along the branches of different trains. Logan is Northwest; Rogers Park, Edgewater and Andersonville are far North, Pilsen is slightly South. Good luck!

I'm sorry that Lighthouse hasn't been super helpful. I've heard mixed things about their non-vocational services, so sorry to see that confirmed. There are a couple of other resources you can try while you're working out your move: https://www.accessliving.org/core-services offers referral services and maintains a list of disability-friendly landlords. The http://www.blindserviceassociation.org/programs.php#info offers a referral hotline for housing and transportation. Call them at (312) 236-0808. http://www.second-sense.org/programs.asp also operates a hotline for referrals. You can call them at (312) 236-8569. You asked about cardinal directions for CTA lines. Red goes north-south, straight through the loop. Blue starts west, goes east into the loop, and then loops back northwest again. Purple is north-south, but only to the loop. Brown is basically a northwest line, emanating from the loop. Green starts west from the loop (in between the two blue western branches), and then turns and goes south, closely mirroring red. Orange is a southwest line, emanating from the loop. Pink is west, emanating from the loop, a little further south from blue. Something to keep in mind is that the CTA stops are named after their cross-streets, so there is an Irving Park stop on blue and on brown, there is a Belmont on red/brown/purple and on blue, there is a Pulaski on every line except red, there are two Kedzie stops on blue. This was really really confusing to me when I moved here! People are going to tell you all sort of weird shit about Uptown, it's a very divided issue among us natives. The thing is, the nice areas of Uptown are lovely, and the bad areas can be very dangerous, and it's block-by-block. I'm not sure I'd recommend that a newbie to Chicago attempt to live there. It's, like, wait a year and get a feel for things at Beginner level, then graduate to Intermediate and find a place in Uptown once you have your bearings.

If the arts scene is important, and logistics are an issue, Pilsen is probably your first best option. I have not lived there, but have friends who have. It's close enough to the loop to both be more densely developed and less of a trek by CTA to non loop destinations. I think of the city as basically an hourglass shape, with the loop in the middle and the lake and interstate as the edges. That's a very north side centric opinion, tho. Chicago landlords are not NY landlords. I don't know of people who have had trouble getting a lease that they were able to pay for.

8 blocks = 1 mile. I'm in a rush for dinner but in case this wasn't mentioned upthread earlier each block is 100 in the address system - so you can tell how far north, south or west a place is in miles by dividing it by 800. This also gives you the ability to quickly orient yourself just by comparing two street addresses. A lot of L stops in core have compass tiles in the ground right by their exits.

Congratulations. Chicago is fairly stingy with their liquor licenses, so there actually aren't (or weren't when I lived there three years ago) a lot of divey food options that serve beer. BUT - this is probably a good thing for you, because it has created a broad acceptance for BYO in the divey to clean and inexpensive tier of dining. And you shouldn't have much trouble finding places that sell the sort of beer you want to bring. My favorite spot to eat in Andersonville was always Sunshine Grill - a very homey Japanese comfort food place. And I rather enjoyed going a hair to the south on Argyle Street for Vietnamese food or Sun Wah's delicious, fresh Chinese. A bar - I never personally liked Simons that much, but it's beloved by many of my friends. As for getting down to Logan? I'd say it took me 30-45 minutes by car. The hour that Google Maps is currently showing for transit looks plausible, but it was not my thing.

final update. Moving up in mid May. Edgewater is my hood. Took two trips and a lot of headaches, but I like the area. It's quiet without being super distant from night life and so on. Thanks to all of you for your help. It's really appreciated.

Or they refer to their friends in groupings based on train line colors.

Yeah. People in Chicago tend to live in their neighborhoods as if they were small hamlet villages.