Updated September 2026: Apartment List's Chicago neighborhood shortlist, with CrimeGrade violent- and property-crime grades for each of the six picks.
Apartment List's 2026 shortlist of Chicago's safest neighborhoods for renters includes Edison Park, Jefferson Park, Albany Park, Beverly, West Ridge, and Irving Park. We selected these six for their CrimeGrade violent- and property-crime grades and relevance to renters searching in Chicago. Every neighborhood on our shortlist has a violent-crime grade of B or better.
Our picks take you beyond downtown, into residential neighborhoods on Chicago's North, Northwest, and Southwest sides. All six are within city limits, but their housing options and transit connections differ. Below, compare their crime grades and get practical context for your apartment search, followed by three additional Chicago areas with available rentals and asking-rent ranges from Apartment List listings.
| Neighborhood | Violent-crime grade | Property-crime grade | Rail access | Where to search on Apartment List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edison Park | A | A | Metra UP-NW | Far North Side |
| Jefferson Park | A | A- | Blue Line and Metra UP-NW | Northwest Side |
| Albany Park | B | B+ | Brown Line | Far North Side |
| Beverly | B | B+ | Metra Rock Island | Far Southwest Side |
| West Ridge | B | B+ | Bus connections to rail | Far North Side |
| Irving Park | B | B | Blue Line, Metra UP-NW and MD-N | Northwest Side |
Apartment List's 2026 shortlist, using CrimeGrade's modeled grades comparing neighborhoods nationwide. Accessed September 2026; conditions vary within neighborhoods. This is a selected shortlist, not an exhaustive ranking of every Chicago neighborhood.
Far North Side, Northwest Side, and Far Southwest Side are Apartment List search areas that can cover more ground than a single neighborhood. CrimeGrade's grades cover only the six shortlisted neighborhoods, not those three search areas or any single building. Check a listing's address to confirm the neighborhood.
Chicago police recorded 122 homicides in June, July, and August 2026, the city's lowest summer total since 1965, according to WTTW's September 2026 reporting on Chicago Police Department figures. Department figures also show homicides for the year to date running slightly ahead of 2025, so the summer improvement has not carried across every month.
A trend in lethal violence also says little about burglary or vehicle theft near a particular building. The practical approach for renters is to read violent- and property-crime indicators separately, then check recent incidents around a specific address. The six neighborhoods above are a starting shortlist, each carrying a B or better modeled violent-crime grade from CrimeGrade.
Violent crime: A · Property crime: A (CrimeGrade, accessed September 2026).
Rentals in Edison Park run to vintage two- and three-flat buildings, single-family homes, and mid-rise condos rather than large complexes, so a search filtered to large apartment buildings would skip them. The neighborhood sits at Chicago's far northwest corner, where the Metra Union Pacific Northwest line makes its last stop inside the city, and restaurants and storefronts cluster around Northwest Highway and Olmsted Avenue near that station.
Violent crime: A · Property crime: A- (CrimeGrade, accessed September 2026).
Three services meet at the Jefferson Park Transit Center: the CTA Blue Line, Metra's Union Pacific Northwest line, and a bus terminal. They run to different parts of the region. If you expect to commute by transit, compare the services against your usual destinations. Purpose-built rental buildings stand within walking distance of the center, and Milwaukee Avenue carries the commercial strip, anchored by the Copernicus Center.
Violent crime: B · Property crime: B+ (CrimeGrade, accessed September 2026).
Albany Park offers courtyard apartments, brick walk-ups, and two-flats. Restaurants, bakeries, and grocers line Lawrence and Kedzie, while Kimball and Kedzie stations provide Brown Line access. If you want shops and trains within walking distance, compare both against the location of each apartment.
Violent crime: B · Property crime: B+ (CrimeGrade, accessed September 2026).
The Metra Rock Island line runs the length of Beverly, and six stations here and in neighboring Morgan Park form the Beverly/Morgan Park Railroad Stations District. They are spread along a north-south corridor. If you plan to commute on Metra, compare each rental's distance to the station you would use.
The neighborhood is largely residential, on the city's far Southwest Side, with wide streets and older homes including Prairie School and Queen Anne designs.
Violent crime: B · Property crime: B+ (CrimeGrade, accessed September 2026).
West Ridge has no CTA rail station of its own. If you plan to commute by rail, check how you would reach the station from a particular apartment. Bus connections are one option, carrying riders east toward the Red Line and to a Metra station outside the neighborhood. The rental stock is largely courtyard buildings and vintage walk-ups.
Devon Avenue runs east to west between Western and Ridge, a commercial corridor of restaurants and specialty food shops, and Indian Boundary Park anchors the residential side with a Tudor-style fieldhouse, a restored natural area, and a lagoon.
Violent crime: B · Property crime: B (CrimeGrade, accessed September 2026).
Three separate rail routes serve Irving Park, the CTA Blue Line and two Metra lines, but they reach different parts of it, so an address here is not automatically near the one you need. The rental stock mixes vintage courtyard buildings with newer purpose-built apartments near those lines.
Independence Park sits on Irving Park Road just east of Pulaski, in the pocket known as Old Irving Park, with an indoor pool, a gymnasium, and tennis courts.
The comparison table above shows where to start your search for each of these six neighborhoods on Apartment List.
Looking for a different neighborhood fit? Our guide to the best neighborhoods in Chicago broadens the comparison beyond crime grades to help you explore other places to live.
To broaden your search, explore South Loop, Lake View East, and Near North Side. We chose these additional areas for their rental availability and observed asking rents; they are separate from our safety shortlist.
Monthly asking-rent ranges (Apartment List listings, observed September 14–15, 2026).
| Neighborhood | 1-bedroom asking rents | 2-bedroom asking rents |
|---|---|---|
| South Loop | $2,110 to $3,260 | $2,785 to $4,496 |
| Lake View East | $1,924 to $3,300 | $2,873 to $3,374 |
| Near North Side | $2,050 to $4,459 | $3,755 to $6,644 |
Monthly totals include base rent and required monthly fees. Separately billed utilities, deposits, and one-time charges are excluded. Ranges show the lowest and highest monthly totals observed for each bedroom type in the reviewed listings.
South Loop. Just south of the Loop and running toward the lakefront, with rental buildings along State, Clark, Michigan, and Wabash. Rental options include high-rises and converted lofts, including large developments such as Roosevelt Collection on Delano Court.
Lake View East. The stretch of Lakeview between Diversey and Irving Park, east of Racine to the lake, on the boundary published by the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce. Broadway and Halsted carry most of the shops and restaurants, and the lakefront parks and harbor sit along the eastern edge. It covers a long north-south stretch, so check where an address sits along it.
Near North Side. One of Chicago's 77 official community areas, covering the Gold Coast, River North, Streeterville, and part of Old Town between the river and North Avenue. The character changes considerably across it, from dense high-rise blocks to residential streets, so it helps to know which neighborhood a listing is in.
Browse current listings in South Loop, Lake View East, and Near North Side to see what is available now.
Chicago's citywide median rent across all bedroom sizes was $1,898 in August 2026, according to Apartment List's rent estimates. Rent is one part of your monthly budget, and our Chicago cost-of-living guide covers the other expenses to consider when planning a move.
Use this shortlist to narrow where you look, then check the specific address before you apply.
Confirm the listing's location. Neighborhood names on listing sites do not always match the boundaries used here, so check the street address to confirm which neighborhood a listing is actually in.
Check the route you will actually use. Include the trip home, evening and weekend schedules, and the walk to groceries, not just the weekday commute. Travel it at the times of day you expect to, and plan it on the CTA trip planner or on Metra for commuter rail.
Ask the building specific questions. How entry and visitor access work, how packages are handled, how maintenance requests are submitted, and what the exterior lighting is like after dark.
Request the full monthly charge breakdown. Ask for the specific unit and lease term: what the quoted rent includes, which fees are required every month, which utilities you pay separately, and the date the unit is actually available. Some listings quote a total price with fees included and others quote base rent before fees.
Look up the address. Check it on the Chicago Police Department's CLEARMAP crime map, and compare more than one recent source before you decide.
Browse Chicago apartments on Apartment List, narrow your options by budget and bedroom count, and use these checks when choosing which apartments to tour.
Among the six neighborhoods Apartment List reviewed for this 2026 guide, Edison Park carries the strongest pair of CrimeGrade marks, at A for violent crime and A for property crime, followed by Jefferson Park at A and A-. Treat that as a starting point for comparison rather than a definitive ranking of where crime is lowest in Chicago, since a grade describes a whole area and conditions vary block to block.
Violent crime concerns harm or threats to people, while property crime includes offenses such as burglary and vehicle theft. CrimeGrade issues letter grades rather than incident rates, scores each area against other neighborhoods nationwide, and builds them partly through modeling rather than counting. Consider both grades when comparing neighborhoods, then review the specific building and surrounding routes.
Walk the route you would actually use, at the hour you would actually use it. Check the street lighting along the whole loop rather than only outside the building, where the crossings are and whether they are lit, how the entrance and any gate or garage work when you come back, and what incidents are recorded nearby on the Chicago Police Department's CLEARMAP crime map. A crime grade cannot tell you any of this, and nothing in this guide identifies a neighborhood where walking a dog after dark is reliably safe. The grades compare areas; the route is specific to your address.
Check that the building's entry door latches and locks on its own, that the unit's locks work and have been rekeyed since the last tenant, how visitors and deliveries get in, and whether package and bike storage is enclosed. Look at the lighting in the lobby, stairwells, hallways, parking area, and the path in from the street. Then ask management who fixes a broken entry door or lock, and how quickly.
Apartment List groups Chicago listings into search areas, and those areas do not always line up with the neighborhood names used in this guide. Buildings near a boundary can also be described by more than one name, depending on who is describing them. The comparison table above shows where to start for each of our six picks. Because those areas cover more ground than a single neighborhood, check a listing's address to see whether it sits in the neighborhood you are reading about.
Safety shortlist. Apartment List considered neighborhoods with documented rental relevance, then selected these six using CrimeGrade's violent- and property-crime grades. Each has a violent-crime grade of B or better. They appear in grade order, with property crime breaking ties. CrimeGrade's modeled grades compare neighborhoods nationwide; they do not describe every block. CrimeGrade does not disclose the underlying crime-data year. The 2026 date reflects this guide's compilation.
Rental comparison. The three additional areas were selected separately for Apartment List rental options and pricing. Ranges reflect advertised monthly total prices observed September 14–15, 2026, from at least three units across three properties per bedroom type. We checked addresses and removed duplicates. These are listing samples, not neighborhood averages; prices and availability change.
In unit laundry, Patio / balcony, Granite counters, Hardwood floors, Dishwasher, Pet friendly + more
In unit laundry, Patio / balcony, Granite counters, Hardwood floors, Dishwasher, Pet friendly + more
