Which part of Chicago is the biggest?

The north, south, east or west? You can also use northwest and southeast if you want. But which part of the city is the largest?

And which part of the city is the best part to live in?

Which part of the city is not crowded?

Chicago, Illinois.

In terms of people or space?

You'll get differing opinions of where to live in the city. For whatever reason, a person might live in a given part of the city because of costs, how convenient it is to Public Transportation (i.e commute to work), or perhaps it might be a neighborhood that they like for whatever reason.

And yes, unlike what the last poster said, there is a southeast side of the city...and there are a good amount of people who live down here and commute downtown. The transportation system here is very convenient and I think it can take you less time to get downtown from here than it does living closer to the downtown area!

I like where I live because its not overly crowded and I can get to downtown in a reasonable amount of time by car or public transportation. In addition, if I want to get out of the city, it is relatvely easy and I have ways to go if I want to avoid downtown. Also, you can park your car on the streets on all the streets in my neighborhood without a parking sticker unlike some areas near downtown where you have to pay to park your car somewhere.

So the best best part of the city is southeast or southwest as its not overly crowded like some of the areas near downtown seem to be. If you want to go further out, you can always go into Indiana as there are areas there that have a definite small-town feel near a big city area.

Certain parts of the south side can be bad but not my part in general....you also might want to look southwest towards Beverly. Also you might want to consider Hyde Park (where the U of Chicago is). Report It

Downtown Chicago

... Old Town, and parts of Rush Avenue .......

I think the south side is the largest, as it goes well into the 12000s blocks (or over a hundred & twenty blocks) to the south, and 7200s (Harlem is 7200 west, so 72 blocks) to the west. The only reasonable places to live on the south side, safety-wise would be the South Loop, parts of Bridgeport and Canaryville, Hyde Park near 55th, and then the far south side, we're talking 95th street, 111th and such.

The north side is more popular and crowded by a long shot. Almost everything east of the Kennedy and west of the Lake on the north side is a pretty nice neighborhood. You're looking at Old Town, Wrigleyville, Ravenswood, Lincoln Square, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, North Center, Uptown...
You can include Wicker Park in that area, but it's west of the Kennedy. But in all honesty, if you're going to be new to the city, you want to be on the north side. I'm from the south side, and I love it, but I'm not getting much but a nice, cheap apartment with a parking space right out front. The north side is more expensive, but there's just more to do in a short walk.

I would say the least crowded part of the city would be the south/west side near Midway. If you look at a CTA train map http://yourcta.com/maps/rail/rail.html you'll see that the Orange Line (which services the south/west side) has the least amount of stops. That's because it's mostly industrial, factories, and things like that. The Orange Line is only a little over ten years old, and since then the areas around it have improved, though there isn't much to do besides shop at Target and eat authentic Polish or Mexican food. I would include the O'Hare area (north/west) as well, but O'Hare is super busy and that adds lots of traffic to the area so even though it's not crowded population-wise, it's crowded with way too much traffic.


Also, there really is no east side of the city with Lake Michigan being there and all...I mean there is a very, very, very tiny east side, but you might as well be in Indiana. In fact the neighborhood "East Chicago" is in Indiana, and you have to drive on the Skyway to get to actual Chicago and that's a huge pain in the butt, not to mention the $2.50 toll each way.