The quieter the neighborhood, the less likely it is you'll ever interact with a police officer.
If you're in your mid-20s, the typical places to end up would be Uky Village, Logan Square, Roscoe Village, Lincoln Square, and Uptown.
You wouldn't want to live in Streeterville or Edgewater for reasons beyond the number of police there. If you're seeing lots of police in Wrigleyville, it's because the neighborhood is overrun with drunk overgrown fraternity members. If you actually live in Wrigleyville, there's a good chance you like the police, because Wrigleyville drunks are pretty fucking annoying.
The kinds of police interactions characterized by things like the Laquan McDonald shooting are more or less confined to the south and west sides of the city, where you're not going to move anyways, because nobody is moving there.
There aren't neighborhoods in Chicago that are low-crime and high-police-violence.
I agree with the other commenter on this thread who points out that Chicago is just like every other big city. One of the things that makes Chicago distinctive is (unfortunately) the legacy of segregation and redlining from the 60s and 70s, which gutted whole large areas of the city. There aren't large sections of Manhattan or Brooklyn with virtually no white residents (at least, no area as large as the Austin/Lawndale neighborhoods). It's an extremely unfortunate situation for people that don't have the means to get out of those neighborhoods, and at the same time pretty much entirely shields white people from problems with CPD.
If you are white and in the wrong place, the police may approach you and tell you where you ought to be and how to get there. If you're white in white Chicago, police pretty much don't exist. They're who you call before your insurance company whenever a property crime occurs, and that's only because your insurer makes you.
If you're black or Hispanic and in the wrong place, the police will approach you and try to find any reason. Any reason to what? Any reason to anything, that's what.
The racial segregation in Chicago is no longer enforced by real estate agents, redlining, and covenants. You can rent wherever you like in the city. But how often do you want to be forced to talk to a cop when you step outside?
It's hard to think of a neighborhood within the limits of the city of Chicago where you could be "out of place" for being black or hispanic, since we have huge black and hispanic populations. Beverly, maybe? But that seems like an exception that proves the rule, since Beverly is effectively a south suburb.
I do not at all doubt that if you are an "urban" looking black person wandering around a suburb like Kenilworth you are likely to be harassed by the police. There are Chicago suburbs that are somewhat defined by whiteness.
But even the whitest neighborhoods in Chicago have pretty significant African-American or Hispanic populations as well (there aren't that many black families living in Lakeview, for instance, but there's a large number of Hispanic families there).
Also, no cop has ever warned me to get out of a dangerous neighborhood in Chicago. Has that happened to you? Where were you?
It supposedly happened to a friend of the spouse who doesn't have a lot of common sense. I have no reason to question its veracity, because if anyone was ever in need of a professionally delivered assessment of "WTF are you doing here this late?", it was her. The cops were apparently able to make the assessment of "drunk and stupid" over "trying to buy drugs".
Though now that I think of it, maybe it was both.
And thinking about the other thing, I don't think I have ever seen a potential "just for being black" stop anywhere south of Belmont, either. So I guess that can't be pinned on CPD. Maybe the commercial centers in Rosemont, near O'Hare? Not sure if that's in the official city limits or not.
It is worthwhile to note that you might be black and "out of place" in your own neighborhood if you are outside in your own yard with a camera recording while the police are doing something.
> If you're seeing lots of police in Wrigleyville, it's because the neighborhood is overrun with drunk overgrown fraternity members. If you actually live in Wrigleyville, there's a good chance you like the police, because Wrigleyville drunks are pretty fucking annoying.
Wrigley isn't a good place to drink at. The cops know about how shitty it gets and they're sitting there waiting to break up fights, call the ambulance for people drinknig too much, and ticket out of control people.
Also, something that hasn't been said yet: Don't move to Englewood. That's where most of the crimes occur.
Because the question is where can you move where you won't come into contact with police all that often. Edgewater isn't bad, and I'd live there, but it's higher crime than Uptown and has a higher police presence.
If you're in your mid-20s, the typical places to end up would be Uky Village, Logan Square, Roscoe Village, Lincoln Square, and Uptown.
You wouldn't want to live in Streeterville or Edgewater for reasons beyond the number of police there. If you're seeing lots of police in Wrigleyville, it's because the neighborhood is overrun with drunk overgrown fraternity members. If you actually live in Wrigleyville, there's a good chance you like the police, because Wrigleyville drunks are pretty fucking annoying.
The kinds of police interactions characterized by things like the Laquan McDonald shooting are more or less confined to the south and west sides of the city, where you're not going to move anyways, because nobody is moving there.
There aren't neighborhoods in Chicago that are low-crime and high-police-violence.
I agree with the other commenter on this thread who points out that Chicago is just like every other big city. One of the things that makes Chicago distinctive is (unfortunately) the legacy of segregation and redlining from the 60s and 70s, which gutted whole large areas of the city. There aren't large sections of Manhattan or Brooklyn with virtually no white residents (at least, no area as large as the Austin/Lawndale neighborhoods). It's an extremely unfortunate situation for people that don't have the means to get out of those neighborhoods, and at the same time pretty much entirely shields white people from problems with CPD.