Rent Is High All Across Chicago, According To Deranged Map

By Mae Rice in News on Feb 16, 2016 4:27PM

Would you like to learn about the cost of living all across Chicago? Well, you can do that with this handy new map—titled, fittingly, “The Cost of Living All Across Chicago”—provided you think Chicago is about a quarter as big and a trillion times as rich as it actually is.

In that case, here you go! A map of the city and its rents, with no neighborhoods missing at all, courtesy of apartment ranking and review site AptAmigo. Yep, just a totally normal and great rent map:

Map via AptAmigo

So glad all 14 of Chicago's neighborhoods are represented here! In Chicago, the farthest South you can go is the South Loop, and the farthest West you can go is the West Loop.

Are you a Chicagoan who lives in the bustling neighborhood known as Wicker Park? Haha, trick question! There is no Wicker Park.

In all seriousness, though: I can't tell whether to laugh or cry at this map. It’s batshit. If the "cartographer" behind it doesn't turn out to be a blood-relative of Donald Trump, I will eat a shoe.

This is a map where the entire South Side, Pilsen, and Little Village all don't exist. (And the omission of largely Hispanic neighborhoods is especially peculiar, as this map was made by a website called, if you will recall, AptAmigo.)

This is also a map where the Gold Coast is a one-dollar-sign area. What an incisive look into the cost of living all across Chicago! Haha! Hahaha. Sob.

Update, 12:30 p.m.: A commenter pointed out that at the very, very end of the article that accompanies this map, AptAmigo does fleetingly acknowledge Chicago has other neighborhoods. We were either unfair or kind to omit this, depending on how you look at it.

The header of the closing section in question is "Explore the Wild Wild West!"—[headdesk]—and within it, AptAmigo asks readers to send in rent data on the West Side. They have heard that some people live there! They have also heard tell of the "North" and "South" sides, but they pretty specifically do not want data on those neighborhoods.