West Town

First off, the area shown on this map here isn’t West Town. West Town includes East Village and Ukrainian Village, and extends from Division to Grand, Western to the Kennedy.

Second, this review will be very biased, as my neighborhood is Ukrainian Village.

I have to first say that this neighborhood has long been very nice and neighborly. It’s good for families, singles, older people and younger ones too. The businesses, bars and restaurants are locally owned, and everywhere you go there’s a wonderful community atmosphere.

Unfortunately, this is changing rapidly. West Town is an area that’s been experiencing gentrification like crazy. Apartment buildings are being torn down left and right and replaced with very expensive condos. One down the street from me was going for $500,000. REALLY? This of course does not apply to all people buying these condos, but many of them have a really bad attitude towards the neighborhood and its residents. For example, the neighborhood association posted on their website that they wanted all businesses to get rid of the bars over their windows and that they wanted to start attracting only ‘high-end’ businesses and families to the neighborhood. The area used to be very diverse, and is growing increasingly NOT so. This is the reason gentrification is a problem. It pushes out long-time residents by overpricing the real estate and making them feel unwelcome in their own neighborhood.

That being said, I’ve always loved living in the area. It’s convenient and a real community, although I can’t say how long that will last.

Dependent on how you look at it, West Town is really a couple of neighborhoods put together. It sort of encompasses Humboldt Park, Wicker Park, Ukranian village, East Village, and River West. The part of the map on Streetadvisor is kind of part of Humboldt Park, although that would be the area I would think of as West Town.

Being between Wicker Park and Humboldt Park, West Town is sort of a middle ground as a far as how nice the neighborhood is. I'm a big fan of Wicker Park, and would like to live there if the apartment prices weren't quite so high, and I see a good future for Humboldt Park, which could use a bit more gentrification to make it safer and nicer. West Town isn't a bad place, as it is just a bit nicer than Humboldt Park, but doesn't have the same price problems that I've found in Wicker Park. It's a pretty good area, close to better neighborhoods, and definitely on the rise. I'd give it a relatively high recommendation.