Hyde Park is a historic neighborhood with a lot of local flavor and a defensible restaurant / bar scene. Plus, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Target all recently opened locations here, so there's an abundance of grocery store options.
I personally loved living close to campus, for access both to Harper Center and to the broader UChicago campus. I feel much more integrated with the rest of the university as a result of proximity and availability.
You can easily access all your necessary facilities. Just 1 minute walk to CTA bus stops for U of C and downtown and U of C night shuttle bus stop. 3 minutes walk to Metra station. You can go to Whole Foods Market without getting out during brutal Chicago winter. 5 minutes walk to Chipotle, Roti, Starbucks, movie theater and UPS .10 minutes walk to Trader Joes, Office Depot, Walgreens, CVS, Target, and USPS.
If I manage to catch the bus, it's about 15 minutes during busy times of the day or like 9 minutes at non-busy times. I can also walk to school in about 20 minutes, so it's not bad even if I miss the bus or if there are too many people already on the bus so it just drives by without even stopping (which happens frequently before 10 am). I've never had any problems where I live, and I regularly walk around at very odd hours like 3 am or whatever. Of course, I don't recommend doing that. It only takes once.
The convenience of getting to campus cannot be beat. I feel relatively safe as a young woman here. I have never been robbed thus far. Thankfully there are lots of police officers. I get my groceries at hyde park produce and whole foods, which are both pretty convenient. The 172 is great. I just wish it ran later at night for late classes.
Hyde park is just the best! It has really blossomed over the past 5 years that I've been living there. It has really become home for me. I have lived on Blackstone, Cornell, Woodlawn, and now Kenwood. Each experience has been awesome. I have felt comfortable and safe at all times - even with my late night walks/runs. My favorite feature of course is Lake Michigan! There's something about Hyde Park's lake front that i just adore!
There's a lot going on off of 53rd. Good restaurants (A10, Promentory, Yusho) and even some worthwhile fast food (Native Foods, Chipotle). There are two grocery stores (Hyde Park Produce is phenomenal), and almost everything else (a hardware store, an office supply store in the Treasure Island shopping center, some doctors' offices off of 55th). Down on 57th there are some other good restaurants (Medici) and 57th Street Books is a cornerstone. Hyde Park even just got an improv comedy place (The Revival) on 57th.
In short, there's enough going on in Hyde Park not to feel isolated, but it's far enough away from the city not to feel suffocated.
Hyde Park is great if you want convenience and safety. Some things are a little overpriced (god help those who want cheap flour) but others are cheap (i.e., square footage of your unit if you aren't in Regents). It's not a neighborhood for those who love nightlife. We have almost none. But there's a professional theater company, some good restaurants, and you can walk home basically any time of night.
Hyde Park is a great place to live for a student or a young family, in that it's relatively quiet, but is growing quickly in terms of entertainment and dining options. It's also very beautiful, being an older neighborhood with a lot of brownstones and castle-like structures, and big trees with lots of beautiful foliage in the fall. I don't like the fact that there's not an L stop central to the neighborhood, but the Metra makes up some of the difference if you live nearby, and the buses to downtown are relatively convenient. Also, people's concerns about "safety" are ridiculous – I think certain people tend to become afraid when they see more brown people than they are used to, but the neighborhood is actually one of the wealthiest and safest neighborhoods in the city, in addition to having the advantage of being culturally and demographically diverse. There's also a lot of really nice park space (you're between Jackson Park and Washington Park, have the Midway Plaisance right in the middle of the university, and other smaller parks like Nichols Park and Harold Washington Park provide a lot of nice greenery).
