Chicago's downtown isn't one neighborhood, it's eleven — and they couldn't be more different. River North parties, West Loop works, Hyde Park stretches your budget further than anywhere else downtown. Pick wrong and you'll spend a year commuting to the wrong bars.
Rents run from about $2,271/month in Hyde Park to $3,497 in Old Town, with most of downtown — River North, West Loop, Fulton Market, Streeterville — landing around $3,300–3,400. That's the real spread across roughly 3,600 apartments listed right now.
Every guide below breaks down one neighborhood: real prices, the buildings worth touring, and what it's actually like to live there.