I don't think this is too doomerish for the doomer comm, but this is something I need to get off my chest.
I'm a bit of a manchild, I graduated but no one wants to hire me so I have no money. I am stuck in a dead end, only a dollar above minimum wage job because that is as far as my resume will take me. Employers claim that they are desperate for work but they are as picky as ever. Hell, with the recent fed shenanigans, they WANT be broke an unemployed because shareholders and porky can never take one for the team (unlike us disposable poors).
I can't afford rent anywhere, even in the tiny hick town I grew up in with literally NOTHING to do outside my shitty job, so that rules out getting out and meeting people, I never met anyone in college and all my childhood friends have forgotten about me. Sure, I can go to a place where there are things to do, but it's a 40 minute drive to the small city....and I have no friends so that really limits things. I'd love to move into a West Coast City or NYC, but those are absurdly expensive, but it also seems like that's where everyone is that I could be compatible with. Ironic, the cities that are supposedly good havens for misfits and outcasts are the most attractive to investors and thus have the highest property values.
I know I can't give up, I want to have friends, I want to live somewhere nice and do dumb webcomic-y stuff. But I can't help but think that said life has been stolen from me by wall street to feed porky's unending hunger. I'm still going to try to leave, so for people who are in these situations, what have you done to pull yourself out and if you're a 20-something in bumfuck nowhere, how the hell do you meet friends?
In terms of violence, not dangerous at all. I've lived in poor neighborhoods (last vet was across the street from o block) and nobody gave me shit. Never been mugged although I'm sure I know somebody who has. Catalytic converter thieves (I hear these guys are armed now :( ) and porch pirates are common but that's not very different from other cities.
I get the sense that, especially as a newcomer, you'd have to specifically seek out gangs and get involved in order to be in danger. There's only a couple shooting hotspots and they're in poor neighborhoods with nothing to do and little transit access, so you probably won't be there anyway. (Put another way: the conditions in majority of city are good enough that a few sacrifice neighborhoods can be totally ignored except when they're politically useful.) The news cycle stories about it somehow being dangerous downtown are ludicrous. Your comfort level may vary, esp depending on how you present, but as a tall young white guy I feel comfortable being almost anywhere in the city late at night unarmed.
When I lived in Woodlawn (edge of a "bad" neighborhood) I heard gunshots maybe once a month, but since I'm not involved in gang stuff it's essentially random violence from my perspective. No reasonable precautions available, and by the numbers not risky enough to care about. I feel safer hearing gunshots from up in an apartment - now I'm on the ground floor - but if you're getting shot through the wall you've won a terrible lottery ticket. I now live in a cheap west side neighborhood and have heard gunshots once in six months. If you live in wicker park or old town or something you probably won't ever hear gunshots.
A word on transit: I ran the numbers last year for some internet fight. Over a 40 year commute to work, car vs red line, you're more likely to get in a serious car accident than you are to be mugged or hurt on the train. It's very safe, especially if you're commuting at the same time as everybody else. Late at night you might see some guys smoking pot.
I'm a big guy so I'm not too worried about being out at night either. My girlfriend on the other hand is very short and from a small town, so the idea of living in Chicago is troubling to her. For some reason she has no problem with DC, but from what I understand DC has more muggings and theft than Chicago.
My female friends don't like to take transit at night, which I think is a shame. Catcalls or harassment seems more likely than muggings and people don't like feeling vulnerable. Maybe she'd feel better after a visit, idk. Especially looking around one of the nice residential neighborhoods.
Also holy christ for a city as nice and connected as it is housing is so cheap. I'm sorry I'm bombarding you with questions about Chicago rn, this is the last one. How are the bike lanes/biking generally? I saw there's a project to add new ones and add more barriers, but when I was there a lot of the lanes were all painted on. This was in the Loop though. I can't drive so being able to bike and take the L around the city and have it actually get me places sounds incredible.
Hey no worries, you can also post in /c/chicago if you want more responses. This isn't from first-hand experience because I've never had a bike in the city but I think it's mixed. Some places don't have bike lanes, some places do, some places actually have protected bike lanes. I have a few friends who bike to get around and most of them have had at least one near-crash with a car, if not an actual accident. From the driver's seat, the vast majority of bike lanes I see are painted.
IMO transit is usually pretty good but you'll want to make sure that your work and regular activities are in compatible locations with where you live. Basically, directly N/S/E/W or along the L. Buses run along the city grid and are slower and less frequent than trains. The L is laid out in big spokes sticking out from the loop. Imagine you're trying to go from the west side to the northeast. Your two choices:
The CTA has gotten markedly worse since the pandemic created a bunch of staffing issues. Because they don't want to admit the scale of the problem, many buses and trains just don't show up when scheduled. This makes multi-step transit trips EXTREMELY annoying, because one ghost bus might mess up the timing on the rest of the trip. When I lived on the south side near the green line, I didn't want a car. Now that I'm on the west side and have lots of friends to the north I got a car rather than suffer a 1h+ trip every time we hang out or bleed money to rideshare alls. Of course I still take transit downtown and when I want to have a few drinks.
I'm trying to coax her into a trip, partially because I need to go back. I was only there for 3 days, and I spent most of my time at the MSI and Field Museum. As you said, I think if she saw some of the pretty, increasingly gentrified north side neighborhoods she'd see that it's no different than where we are/where she's been.