Lower West Side

Reading Lower West Side, IL beyond the headline numbers

Lower West Side sits inside Cook County, Illinois, at roughly 41.85°N, -87.67°W. Its population of 5,182,090 and median household income of $83,498 are the two most quoted figures, but in isolation they hide the shape of the city. A median home value of $324,500 paired with median rent of $1,435 is the starting point for a price-to-income read that tells you how stretched a typical household is before any other cost of living factor is considered. The 13.5% poverty rate next to that income figure is the better signal — two cities with identical medians can have very different lived realities depending on the income distribution underneath.

Health and healthcare access are the next layer most residents and prospective movers actually care about. CDC PLACES indicators for Lower West Side show the highest-prevalence measure is short sleep duration at 35.6%, followed by obesity at 31%. Within the city boundary, CMS Hospital Compare tracks 57 hospitals with an average rating of 2.6/5 and 10 carrying emergency departments — the ER count is the more actionable figure if you are evaluating a move because it defines the effective trauma radius.

Areazine reconstructs these layers from U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, NCES, NOAA, and BEA — each updated on its own cadence — and pairs them with live alerts from FEMA, NOAA, FDA, and CPSC scoped to the Lower West Side area. The comparison bars next to each metric anchor the number against a national reference, which is the fastest way to tell whether Lower West Side is an outlier on a given dimension before drilling into the raw value.