Carbondale 101

March 22, 2006 10:34 AM

Tell me of the waters of Carbondale, Usul...

I'm taking an interview at SIU and am impressed so far with the relevant department. So what's the good, the bad, and the ugly about Carbondale (Illinois, not PA or CO)?

posted by ROU_Xenophobe to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

This may not be helpful, but I have drove through Carbondale a number of times and have been annoyed at the city, humid, flat, lots of traffic. Not sure what you are looking for, but on drive through it looked pretty uninteresting, the pics here is what I think of, only more so. BUt, this is from someone who dislikes living in that type of geography.
(I had a cousin-in-law who was shipped from Chicago to Carbondale for an involuntary commitment when he was 16, so that might affect my feelings as well)
posted by edgeways at 11:19 AM on March 22, 2006

Things I know about Carbondale:

1) It is one of the best party towns in the Midwest.
2) It has its own strain of ganja, the "Carbondale Crystal Chunk"
3) According to my friend who lives there, they have a pretty kickin' music scene.
4) It's within driving distance from Shawnee National Forest, if you're into camping and such.
posted by Afroblanco at 11:48 AM on March 22, 2006

The only thing I really know about Carbondale is that Jose and Kitty Menendez met there, and we all know how that ended.
posted by dersins at 1:02 PM on March 22, 2006

I go to Champaign and my brother goes to Carbondale, and one thing that always amazes me is how cheap the rents are. Apartments and houses are ridiculously inexpensive for a college town. He rents a 2000sqft house with inground pool paying only $750 a month. One downside is that the nearest major city, St Louis is a kind of far. So if you want to watch any obscure films or any big music acts you are probably in for a 2 hour drive. From what I have heard, Carbondale has also toned down a bit from the days of yesteryear, when they used to have riots and such every halloween.
posted by Mr Mister at 2:38 PM on March 22, 2006

I spent 4.5 years there as an undergrad 20 years ago. At that time it was a huge party school, little if any Greek influence, with no real interest in sports. (That's probably changed now, with the basketball program' success.) The town itself is pretty nondescript, dominated by the college, very walkable with most of the bars and stores along a strip a couple miles long. The campus is pretty sprawling but self-contained, if that makes sense -- it's not the kind of college where the school is spread all over and mixed with the town -- the campus is well-defined. There's a fair amount of woods and a big lake on campus, and there's a very nice little quad type area surrounded by 19th century classroom and administration buildings where they sometimes have (had?) concerts in the summer. Outside of town there are malls, as with every other small town in America.

The great part about Southern is it is in Southern Illinois, a beautiful part of the country. If you have a car you might want to look at living in Makanda, a tiny, earthy-crunchy little town just south of Carbondale. Somewhere in Makanda there's a house with a stream that comes into the house at one end, runs right down through the living room and out the other side. There's also a house in Carbondale that Bucky Fuller built when he was here, one of the original dome homes. I think it's being restored now but in the early 80s it was just another student rental house, one of my friends lived there and I was in there a lot. In Giant City (in Makanda) there are caves and good rock climbing and some graffitti scratched into a rock by Civil War soldiers. Crab Orchard lake is just east of town, a huge lake with lots of fishing, boating, swimming etc. The whole area is lousy with little swimming holes and caves and places to gobble shrooms and freak on nature. So, a lot of little interesting quirky things about Carbondale & environs. Also there's an Amtrak station a few blocks from campus with daily service to Chicago. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

a good overview of Southern Illinois' natural beauty
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 4:00 PM on March 22, 2006

To add a bit to stupidsexyFlanders: In addition to Giant City State Park & Crab Orchard (each literally minutes outside of town), there are at least a couple of nice wineries in the area, Lake of Egypt just a few miles away, all of Shawnee, and Memphis is about as far as (maybe a hair or two farther than) St. Louis. Chicago is probably 6-7 hours by car, but the train is the way to go (<6 hrs). I think it's well worth taking a few extra days and seeing the surroundings while you're in for the interview.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:04 PM on March 22, 2006

Rent is way cheap, yeah, especially if you don't mind living in one of the little dinky towns nearby. (I lived in a one-bedroom in Du Quoin, six miles away, for $200 a month.)

It's got a couple of pretty good music stores, a quite respectable bar/music scene, considering it's hours away from any real cities, and it has my favorite coffeehouse in America (the Longbranch).

On the dark side, it's roughly equidistant from Nashville and Branson.
posted by EarBucket at 8:19 PM on March 22, 2006