The Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Statistical Area, also known as Champaign-Urbana and known colloquially by some as Chambana, is a metropolitan area in east central Illinois. Composed of three counties (Champaign, Ford, and Piatt), the area had a population of 210,275 at the 2000 census[1] and anchored by the principal cities of Champaign and Urbana. Students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are included in this estimate of residents although they are typically discounted from the official city census as they are not permanent residents.
Champaign-Urbana is home to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system.
Newsweek has named Champaign-Urbana as one of the top ten tech cities (outside of the Silicon Valley)[2]. Champaign-Urbana also ranked tenth as one of the top twenty-five green cities in the United States, in a survey made by Country Home Magazine.[3]
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With a total area of 1,924 mi² (4,944 km²) and a population of 210,275, the population density was 109.3 people per mi² (42.53/km²) in 2000.
The Champaign-Urbana Metro area is home to two hospitals, the Carle Foundation Hospital, and Provena Covenant Medical Center, with a combined total of over 550 physicians. Both hospitals are located less than a mile apart on University Avenue in Urbana. Both hospitals provide various specialized services, and Carle Hospital currently has a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Level I Trauma Center, and a medical helicopter service. Both hospitals are currently having to face the fact that their tax-exempt statuses are being revoked by the State of Illinois.[4]
Carle Clinic Association maintains several locations next to the hospital as well as other locations within C-U and other East Central Illinois cities. Christie Clinic, another smaller multispeciality group practice, is headquartered in downtown Champaign. They are largely affiliated with Provena Covenant Medical Center but are not as closely linked as their Carle counterparts.
Both hospitals and clinics are affiliated with the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana, part of the larger University of Illinois College of Medicine, which has campuses in Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, and Urbana. A teaching presence is at both hospitals, although the facilities are somewhat more extensive at Carle Foundation Hospital.
The Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area is home to many theatres. The University is home to three theatre venues; Foellinger Auditorium, Assembly Hall and The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. While the Assembly Hall is primarily a campus basketball and concert arena, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is considered to be one of the nation's top venues for performance and hosts over 400 performances annually. Built in 1969, the Krannert Center's facilities cover over four acres (16,000 m²) of land, and features four theatres and an amphitheatre.
The Historic Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign is a public venue owned by the city of Champaign and administered by the Champaign Park District. It is best known for hosting Roger Ebert's Film Festival which occurs annually during the last week of April. It features a variety of performances from community theatre with the Champaign Urbana Theatre Company, to post box-office showings of popular films, current artistic films, live musical performances (both orchestral and popular), and other types of shows. First commissioned in 1921, it originally served as a venue for both film and live performances, but became primarily a movie house in the 1950s. Occasional live events were held during the 1970s and 1980s, including a live production of "Oh, Calcutta" and performances by George Benson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Missing Persons, and the Indigo Girls. GKC Corporation closed the Virginia as a movie house on February 13, 1992, with the final regular film being Steve Martin's "Father of the Bride". The theatre once again began holding regular live performances when it was leased to local gospel singer David Wyper in 1992. The Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company was formed to perform major musicals and opened their first season with "The Music Man" that June. Control passed to the Virginia Theatre group in 1996 and the theatre became a non-profit public venue. The Champaign Park District assumed control of the facilities in 2000. Its original Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ has been maintained by Warren York since 1988 and is still played regularly.
The Art Theater in downtown Champaign began as Champaign's first theatre devoted to movies, the Park, in 1912, and is a small venue showing films not normally playing at the box office. The theatre is the only single-screen movie theatre with daily operation as a movie theatre in Champaign-Urbana. The Virginia, which hosts Roger Ebert's Annual Overlooked Film Festival, is also single-screen, but only opens for special showings and events. Rapp and Rapp's 1914 Orpheum Theatre closed in the mid-1980s and now houses a children's science museum.
Parkland College in Champaign features a small theatre called the Parkland College Theatre and a planetarium called the William M. Staerkel Planetarium.
The area has originated a great deal of musical talent, starting with REO Speedwagon, Head East, Dan Fogelberg and including HUM, Poster Children, Hardvark, The Moon Seven Times, Braid, Castor, National Skyline, Absinthe Blind, Headlights, The Living Blue and The Beauty Shop. Some lesser known artists like Alma Afrobeat Ensemble, Zirafa and Spinnerty, d-Lo, Bozak, Melodic Scribes, DJ Librarian, UC Hiphop, Saint Syke, and Zmick are also worthy of note on simply a local scale.
The cities now host Pygmalion Music Festival on an annual basis, presented by the Nicodemus Agency and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Past performers include Iron and Wine, The Books, YACHT, Rjd2, Yo La Tengo, Black Mountain, Asobi Seksu, Times New Viking, of Montreal, Danielson, Man Man, Okkervil River, Andrew Bird, Questlove, and more. The 2010 festival is scheduled for September 22–25.
While greater Champaign-Urbana does not feature any professional sports teams, the University of Illinois fields many teams which compete in the Big Ten Conference. Two large sports centers (Memorial Stadium and Assembly Hall) are located in the south-east portion of Champaign. Memorial Stadium is a football arena where the Fighting Illini football team plays, and Assembly Hall is the home of the highly-successful Fighting Illini basketball team. In addition, the NFL's Chicago Bears played in the Memorial Stadium for the 2002 season while Soldier Field was being modernized and refurbished.
The city of Champaign has been working with the Frontier League to create a privately-owned professional baseball team. The team was scheduled to start playing in the 2009 baseball season, but was delayed in 2008 to the 2010 season at the earliest.[5] Since then however, there has been no development on the matter.
The University of Illinois will host the 2010 NCAA tennis championship. The university is currently constructing a new outdoor tennis stadium next to the Atkins Tennis Center and softball field just south of Florida Avenue in Urbana. The Illini Tennis team won the 2003 NCAA tennis championships and is highly ranked nationally.
The following people are from the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area or attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign*:
*It is a common misconception that Hugh Hefner was born in Champaign-Urbana. However, sources list him as being born in Chicago, though he did attend the University of Illinois in Urbana.[1]
A dozen outlying suburban areas are dependent on Champaign and Urbana for economic and political support. The largest of these areas are the towns of Savoy, Mahomet, St. Joseph, and arguably Monticello as well. Most of these cities and towns lie in Champaign County. These areas are populated primarily to partially with commuters who work in Champaign or Urbana, and choose to live outside of the city. Because many of these small towns partially consist of many highly paid professors, doctors and technology professionals who work for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the many clinics and hospitals in town, or in the Research Park, these areas often have a higher median household income than Champaign or Urbana.
The suburban part of the Metropolitan area is constructed in a way that is untraditional. Instead of a sprawling suburban skirt that encircles the urban area, the urban area is surrounded by farmland, with small to medium sized suburban villages consisting mainly of residential areas dotting the landscape. Most of these villages are home to over 1,000 to people, though some have as many as over 5,000 residents. Although many of these towns were originally developed as farming communities long before Champaign-Urbana became a regional powerhouse, they are now very affluent due to the high incomes of the residents and the resulting high tax revenue collected by the village. This movement of tax dollars from Champaign and Urbana to their dependent areas is a point of constant strife between the cities and the suburbs.
Although the "hub-and-spoke" system has defined the 'suburban' area of Champaign-Urbana for some time, new "cookie-cutter" type housing developments are beginning to appear around the skirts of the area. Notably large neighborhoods are currently under construction as far as around Rising Road west of I-57 in Champaign and north and east of Willard Airport in both Champaign and Savoy. Some land development has even appeared to start north of I-74 in both Champaign and Urbana. On the far east (Urbana) area of the city, new business developments such as a Meijer, a planned Menards and a commercial center with many restaurants and services have broken ground for more suburban housing, although the issue of land development will undoubtedly be hotly contested in local government.
Recently, Champaign and Urbana has seen its skyline going up. At the University of Illinois campus, Memorial Stadium has gone under major renovation and construction of new stands, clubs and luxury suites. In Campustown, a new 24-story highrise apartment building (locally known as the Whopper) has gone under construction. The Whopper is three stories higher than the older 21 story Tower at Third. The Whopper will also see another planned tower (Phase Two) rise nearly as high next to it at the corner of Fourth Street and Green Street, but plans are still under development. The Burnham 310 Project, at 18 stories, will be finished in the fall of 2008 and includes student luxury apartments and a County Market grocery store. Burnham 310 will soon have street level condos under construction, which will be part of the new Burnham District, which will connect downtown Champaign to Campustown. In downtown, the new 9 story M2 on Neil project is under construction. M2 will have offices, retail, and condos. An even bigger building with 62 condos is being planned and will sit next to M2. A new boutique hotel is also being planned. These, among other developments, are giving the city a more urban feel.
| Suburbs and Dependent Areas of Champaign-Urbana |
|---|
| Allerton | Augerville | Bondville | Fulls | Kenwood | Lake of the Woods | Mahomet | Mayview | Mira | Ogden | Rantoul | Rising | Philo | St. Joseph | Savoy | Staley | Tolono | Tipton | Wilbur Heights |
Champaign-Urbana is a metropolitan area in central Illinois, composed of the towns of Champaign, Urbana, and Savoy. The community is the site of the main campus of the University of Illinois, one of the great public universities of the United States.
Champaign-Urbana is a metropolitan area of almost 230,000 located amongst the corn and soybean fields about 150 miles south of Chicago. The area dates to about the mid-nineteenth century, as Urbana was founded in 1833, Champaign in 1855 and the University in 1867. Starting out as a farming community, the area matured into two cities with influences at various times through the years including the Illinois Central railroad, the University, now-defunct Chanute Air Force Base in nearby Rantoul and others. Today, the cities can be described as growing, cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse, with a modern urban feel in the area's core.
Today Champaign-Urbana is defined by some amount of traditional industry such as Kraft Foods and others, a growing technology and information sector, and the University. The University is the county's largest employer and a very large instituion of 43,000 students. It would be short-changing Champaign-Urbana to call it merely a college town. But there is no doubt that the center of gravity of the arts, entertainment, and intellectual communities rest with the University.
It would be safe to say that Champaign-Urbana is a very open-minded community with regard to social issues, and retains some Midwestern values such as virtue of hard work. Urbana is seen as the more politically liberal and pastoral of the two, and Champaign is seen as having more of a big-city feel. Champaign-Urbana residents are proud of their oasis of culture and big-city amenities amongst the cornfields, of the less intense traffic, sprawl and lower cost of living here compared to major cities, and of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini sports teams.
Willard Airport (airport code:CMI) [1], is a regional airport operated by the University of Illinois and located roughly 20 minutes south of downtown Champaign. American Eagle files from Willard Airport to Chicago and Dallas. Northwest Airlink/Delta Connection offers service to Detroit. Allegiant Airlines flew to Las Vegas in the second half of 2007, but discontinued service to the airport in early December of the same year supposedly due to an unmanageably high cost of fuel.
The airport is served by a municipal bus line, the CUMTD No. 27 "Air Bus". This makes for a cheap and convenient option to campus or the downtown Champaign transit center. Fare is $1 each way and it operates 5 am to 6 pm daily (except University breaks and major holidays). The "Air Bus" service maintains a very precise schedule, usually arriving at the airport at the bottom of the hour without delay.
A typical taxi fare between the airport and Urbana west of Vine Street is $14 for the first person and $10 for each additional person (not including tip).
Car parking at Willard Airport (short- or long-term) costs a maximum of $5 a day. In contrast, all parking at nearby (45 mins away) Central Illinois Regional Airport [2] (airport code:BMI) in Bloomington, Illinois is free. This is due to land ownership differences (BMI is municipally owned and subsidized, whereas CMI is owned by the university and can not be crossed-subsidized by others). Passengers with car problems should contact the parking booth attendant for free assistance provided by Crash and Rescue (for example, jump starting a dead car battery).
It is possible to bicycle to Willard Airport from Champaign-Urbana via country roads. One can bike south on First Street in Champaign or Race Street in Urbana and then head west on County Road 1100 N which runs directly into the airport. The distance is 8.4 miles from downtown Urbana and 7.0 miles from downtown Champaign. There is an outside bicycle rack in front of the terminal.
The nearest major airports are in Chicago (O'Hare (ORD) and Midway (MDW)), Indianapolis, and Saint Louis. Land carriers such as Illini Shuttle, Greyhound, Burlington Trailways, and Amtrak connect Champaign-Urbana to these other cities and airports.
Champaign-Urbana is on the Amtrak system, and is served by three regularly-scheduled train routes, the 58/59 City of New Orleans, the 390/391 Saluki and the 392/393 Illini. All trains run Chicago to Carbondale and the 58/59 continues southward to Memphis, Jackson, and New Orleans. Here are the daily arrival/departure times:
The train is an excellent option for traveling between Champaign-Urbana and downtown Chicago, with tickets costing as little as $15 each way if booked far enough in advance. Trip time to Chicago is about 2h 50m, and one can connect to the Amtrak national network there. Amtrak, the commercial bus lines (Greyhound, Burlington Trailways, LEX, Illini Shuttle) and the municipal bus system (CUMTD, DMT) all arrive and depart from Illinois Terminal in downtown Champaign. However, it should be noted that there is only one set of tracks along much if not most of the route between New Orleans and Chicago and freight trains are given priority. This can result in long delays, particularly toward the Chicago and New Orleans ends of the City of New Orleans train service.
Interstate 74 runs east-west. 120 miles east is Indianapolis and continues to Cincinnati. To the west are the cities of Bloomington-Normal and continues to Peoria, Galesburg, and the Quad Cities of Davenport/Moline/Rock Island/Bettendorf. Interstate 57 runs north to Chicago and south into Southern Illinois, joining up with I-55 to Memphis. Interstate 72 runs east from Hannibal/Quincy,Springfield (Illinois) and Decatur (Illinois), terminating in Champaign.
Burlington Trailways offers 2 daily frequencies for its east-west service between Champaign and Peoria and Galesburg, and to Danville and Indianapolis. Burlington Trailways buses are also sold as connecting Amtrak Thruway services for Amtrak passengers.
Danville Mass Transit operates a Champaign-Danville bus, using city transit-style buses. There are 7 weekday round trips and 5 Saturday round trips. See the Danville Mass Transit website [3] for details.
Greyhound Lines runs frequently between Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, as well as to/from Springfield and St. Louis.
Illini Shuttle by Suburban Express [4] offers daily service between Champaign-Urbana and Chicago Airports.
Suburban Express [5] offers reliable weekend scheduled services (Thu-Mon) from various UIUC points to various Chicagoland suburbs. Fares start at $20 each way when ordered online way in advance.
Greyhound, Burlington Trailways, Suburban Express, Illini Shuttle, trains (Amtrak), and the city buses (CUMTD, DMT) all arrive and depart at Illinois Terminal in downtown Champaign.
Megabus, [6]. Low-cost carrier offers daily service to Champaign from Chicago and Memphis. Fares start at $1 each way when ordered way, way in advance. The bus stop is located along the north side of East Logan Street, west of Market Street.
Most of Champaign-Urbana is laid out on a grid, aligned with due north, making navigation not too difficult. The exception is the oldest part of downtown Champaign, which is rotated East from the main grid. (This is because Champaign first developed parallel to the railroad).
However, be aware that street addresses can be ambiguous, if not given with the city name. For example, there are four Green Streets: East and West in Champaign, and East and West in Urbana. Therefore, if you drive eastward from Champaign to Urbana along Green, you will start out on West Green, go through East Green, and then you'll be back on West Green again-- but in Urbana. Other examples are the two Washington Streets, which have nothing whatever to do with each other, and the two Elm Streets, one of which goes east-west, and the other, north-south.
Champaign-Urbana has a significant number of bicyclists who cycle for transportation and recreation. The flat geography of the community makes it easy to get around on bicycle. While there are few on-street bike lanes or marked bicycle routes and the University of Illinois campus bike path system is considered by some to be obsolete and a bit chaotic, traffic on non-arterial streets is usually light and conducive to bicycling.
The Bike Project Coop [7] in downtown Urbana provides a shop for do-it-yourself bicycle repairs and also recycles and sells bikes at low prices. Two other bicycling organizations are the the Prairie Cycle Club [8] and Champaign County Bikes.org [9].
The only known source of rental bicycles in Champaign-Urbana is the University of Illinois' Division of Campus Recreation [10] which rents bicycles (including tandems) to students as well as to the general public starting at $15/day for students and members to $20/day for others.
The Champaign-Urbana Bicycle Map [11], published in 2008, shows recommended routes for bicycle travel in the community. It can be obtained at no cost at many locations in Champaign-Urbana [12].
The Champaign County Regional Planning Commission [13] publishes maps of Greenways and Trails [14] that includes bicycle paths in Champaign-Urbana and surrounding areas in Champaign County.
Every Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District bus is equipped with a bike rack that will carry two bikes on the front of the bus (see instructions for use [15]). Additionally folding bikes may be carried on buses as per the transit district policy.
Champaign-Urbana has a good municipal bus system, the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District [16]. The adult fare for the city routes is $1.00 (free with a University of Illinois ID card). On-campus routes (21, 22, 23's, 26) are free for everyone, including visitors - no fare or ID required which permits multi-door boardings.
Major routes run 24/7 during the academic year and includes overnight "SafeRides" vans in a designated community zone around the UIUC Campustown, and until midnight (or so) during school holidays, winter break, and summer break. In addition to providing service to Champaign and Urbana, the bus also serves some outlying areas, such as the village of Savoy and the North Prospect shopping area.
Community bus routes (route numbers 1-15, 24, 25, 27, and the decennial series at nights and on weekends(ie 20, 30, 50, 70, 80, 100, 130) ) on most routes run on a thirty minute schedule, while Campus bus routes (route numbers 20's) can run on every 20 min, 10 min, or even as frequently as every 4 minutes throughout the day, depending on route number and time of day. Route 28 operates before all home men's basketball and football games.
The bus fleet is composed primarily of 40 foot low-floor transit buses, supplemented by 60 foot articulated buses and some 30 foot low-floor buses as well. Transit vans are used for SafeRides and for ADA Paratransit. All buses are low-floor, equipped with ramps, wheelchair tiedowns, and lift-up seats in the handicapped-priority seating area - ideal for wheelchairs/walkers/canes/service animals. All buses had GPS locators installed several years ago, and have "Stop Annunciators" to meet ADA requirements for blind travelers.
CUMTD has used GPS for several years to track buses, and has developed a suite of STOPwatch services to aid in passenger travel. STOPwatch includes on-line tracking via a web interface, and the new STOPwatch.WIDGET allows a downloadable Yahoo! widget to track buses on your desktop. One of the most passenger-friendly utilization of STOPwatch is for real-time "Next Bus Arrives..." signage at certain high-traffic bus stops throughout Champaign, Urbana, and the UIUC campus. The entire suite of STOPwatch services (Plus, Journey, Widget, Textmsg, Wap, Web, MyRide) can be found at Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District STOPwatch [17].
As noted above, every Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District bus is equipped with a bike rack that will carry two bikes on the front of the bus (see instructions for use).[18] Additionally folding bikes may be carried on buses as per the transit district policy.
Free printed timetables come in booklet form (about 120 pages), include color maps, and are easily found at Illinois Terminal, most UIUC buildings, dorms and apartments, and at many businesses throughout the cities, as well as on board buses.
Most of Champaign-Urbana is easy driving. However, the campus area is complex. Many streets are one way, traffic lights are set to favor pedestrians, parking is limited, and some streets are restricted to buses, so its easy to get sucked into frustrating loops. Hassles can be minimized by avoiding the rectangle inside Green Street, Fourth Street, Florida/Kirby Avenue, and Lincoln Avenue.
In general, there is little congestion to speak of. The exceptions:
As of the Summer of 2009, there are Zipcars available in Downtown Champaign.
Champaign contains most of the chain restaurants in the area; Urbana has relatively few. There are four main concentrations in Champaign:
There are three "scenes" that contain most of the best known bars in town. These are campustown, downtown Champaign and downtown Urbana. All bars will be smoke-free in state of Illinois on Jan 1, 2008, but most (not all) bars below are already smoke-free due to local ordinances and exemptions. Closing time is 2 am, set by local ordinances, but may be earlier based on individual businesses.
Since the real St. Patrick's Day often falls within the University's Spring Break, local bars often celebrate "Unofficial St. Patrick's Day" the 2nd Friday before. The event goes off much like a normal St. Patrick's Day, and attracts party animals from all over Illinois and other Big Ten schools. Be aware of it if you plan to travel to Champaign-Urbana in early to mid-March as it parking can be scarce and drunk driving checkpoints are common.
Campustown contains perhaps a dozen and a half bars. Here you can expect a clientele that is uniformly college-aged, if it is not Homecoming weekend. Most bars here have a pretty open floor plan and what seating there is tends to be in a loud and exposed area, in contrast to more of a "lounge" establishment. Most bars have an over/under age entry policy, but specifics can vary by location. Must be 21+ years old to purchase liquor at all times. Generally, all ages can be on the property for food and non-alcoholic drinks during the day and evening until 9 pm. After 9 pm, you must be at least 19 years old to enter (some bars may charge cover for under 21), and ID's required by all patrons after 9 pm at most places, due to video scanning/recording of IDs and patrons by doorpeople.
Murphy's, Legends, Joe's, and Firehaus are the sports bar types with food and drinks, while Brothers has more of a dancing atmosphere (but not a dance floor) to it. Dance floors are at Joe's, Station, Kam's, Clybourne, and CO Daniels. Outdoor seating/beer gardens are at Joe's, Legends, Firehaus, and Kam's. Almost all bars have daily and weekly specials, too numerous to mention here, but some examples include:
Downtown Champaign contains maybe a dozen bars and is growing all the time. It has a more varied clientèle with people of all ages, although the median age still probably isn't any higher than thirty. The atmosphere is more upscale than campustown in almost all cases.
Maybe the most upscale establishments in downtown are Boltini and Soma. These bars are new, have had the most thought put into their aesthetics, but still have drink prices pretty much in line with the other establishments and attract trendy as well as less trendy people.
Finally there is downtown Urbana, which contains about a half-dozen bars. Ages of patrons are similar to downtown Champaign or older, and the atmosphere is a little more laid-back in comparison.
There are a multitude of hotels/motels in the Champaign-Urbana-Savoy area. Most national chains have a hotel in the area, so check your favorite hotel's web site or hotel booking web sites for more complete listings and details. The area also has a fairly decent Couchsurfing (via couchsurfing.com) community, but a lack of visitors. Because of this you are likely to find plenty of couchsurfers willing to host you in their homes and show you around the city.
Other hotels include:
Champaign-Urbana has large number of free Wi-Fi hotspots.
A number of day trips are an easy drive from Champaign-Urbana, but many day-trip destinations are notable for their eccentricity or are otherwise offbeat.
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