(08-28-2022 09:49 PM)Dog Fan Wrote: (08-28-2022 09:46 PM)NIU75 Wrote: And you wonder why parents have a high crime perception of NIU and DeKalb.
https://www.cityofdekalb.com/Archive.aspx?AMID=42
Yes, it’s bad. There have even been shootings in Champaign. It has become an epidemic in this country.
Champaign campus town has gone through many changes. It went through a time about 10-15 years ago where businesses we shutting down along Green. Now they have tower hotels, housing and filled store fronts all along it. They have lots of new, nigh priced housing everywhere nearby. Their campus town is the place as it is center between housing, nightlife and campus.
At the same time, maybe a little earlier, they totally revised the old buildings downtown. Tons of businesses, a hotel, restaurants which truth be told some come and go which is an issue with relying on "microbrews" and "coffee shops." But it became a center for upperclassmen and adults living and visiting.
The 2 campuses are nothing alike. VCB mall is a shell of what it was. Can't even support a bookstore. Lincoln West of Annie Glidden has a few food places, had a run down hotel and a large vacant building now. East of Annie Glidden has some food places and other stuff, but in reality AG is not the center of campus. When I attended I never went into that area. If you lived to the north, which I did and where new apartments west of AG are off Hillcrest you are in the middle of nowhere as far as nightlife, stores and near the crap to the east.
Downtown DeKalb has seen it's days, but I give them credit for making it better than it was from 90's on with the shutdowns of Ottos, McCabes, etc.. And as much as I liked Stanley's post college, the police tape for decades preventing one from going upstairs is a microcosm of DeKalb.
DeKalb spread the the east, north. They built up that area for families, permanent resident. I was in Sycamore and saw students at a cool old bar saying how they hated DeKalb nightlife. In CU the outskirts of town, to north of dtown Champaign , which they have rehabbed a little. Area off 74 is still a hell hole surrounded by strip malls and crappy hotels. NIU used to be crappy area N of dtown, not sure if it still is. But now the crap is just off campus, near student housing. That's what sets other schools apart when it comes to crime and business.
Most larger schools is areas of 75-100k+ that have the setup of thriving campus town and a separate downtown that thrives, They likely have an outer belt with strip malls to serve residents. DeKalb did an a great job with that.But DeKalb is too small, not enough students it would seem to support a campus town and downtown, which is kinda far from campus. But these other towns also have the crime, low income areas, like it or not, segregated from campus. Some towns went out of their way to do that. In DeKalb, they let it happen where the students are. As Big Red said, hard to clean it up so put the money dtown. DeKalb is facing issues any area deals with upon growth. Always going to be in increase in crime. Just that it seems to be not home grown as other areas are and not that close to campus. And a school with growth, town with money would (or should, seeing DeKalb has to have a lot of real estate and sales tax coming in) do is takeover those areas, which DeKalb is doing with some business areas at least, and reinvest and as mentioned, take steps to not have this occur again.
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Changes to downtown Dekalb, Lincoln Hwy
