| Champaign-urbana Metropolitan Area |
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Champaign-Urbana is home to (a biotechnology company); the Illinois Natural History Survey ; the Illinois State Geological Survey ; Motorola ; the National Center For Supercomputing Applications ; Phonak ; Power World ; and the Science Applications International Corporation . DEMOGRAPHICS OVERVIEW The CU Metro area has a total area of 75.3 km² (29.1 mi²) giving it a population density of roughly 2,000/km² (5,200/mi²). Exact numbers are typically inaccurate due to the fluctuating student population and inconsistent practices used when discounting students as residents. However, official estimates place the population of the entire metro area at approximately 150,000. Roughly 27% of the residents in the CU Metro area are students at University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign . Additionally, while exact figures are not possible, a large number of residents are graduates of the University, many of them graduates in Science and Engineering who have stayed because of the booming science and technology sectors in the metro area. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
HEALTH The Champaign-Urbana Metro area is home to two Hospitals , the Carle Foundation Hospital , and Provena Covenant Medical Center , with a combined total of over 550 Physicians . Both hospitals are located less than a mile apart on University Avenue in Urbana . Both hospitals provide various specialized services, and Carle Hospital currently has a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Level I Trauma Center, and a medical helicopter service. The not-for-profit Carle Foundation Hospital is closely allied with the for-profit Carle Clinic, which maintains several locations next to the hospital as well as other locations within C-U and other East Central Illinois cities. Christie Clinic, another smaller mutispeciality group practice, is headquartered in downtown Champaign . They are largely affiliated with Provena Covenant Medical Center but are not as closely linked as their Carle counterparts. Both hospitals and clinics are affiliated with the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana, part of the larger University of Illinois College of Medicine, which has campuses in Chicago , Peoria , Rockford , and Urbana . A teaching presence is at both hospitals, although the facilities are somewhat more extensive at Carle Foundation Hospital. ARTS AND CULTURE The Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area is home to many theatres. The University is home to two theatres, Assembly Hall and The Krannert Center For The Performing Arts . While Assembly Hall is largely just a campus theatre, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is considered to be one of the nation's top venues for performance and hosts over 400 performances annually. Built in 1969, the Krannert Center's facilities cover over four acres (16,000 m²) of land, and features four theatres and an amphitheatre. The Historic Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign is a public venue owned by the city of Champaign and administered by the Champaign Park District . It features a variety of performances from community theatre with the Champaign Urbana Theatre Company , to post box-office showings of popular films, current artistic films, live musical performances (both orchestral and popular), and other types of shows. First commissioned in 1921 , it originally served as a venue for live performances before being converted into a movie house in the 1950 s. The theatre once again began showing live performances when it was purchased by the Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company in 1991. Control passed to the Virginia Theatre group in 1995 and the theatre became a non-profit public venue. The Champaign Park District assumed control of the facilities in 2000 . The Boardman Art Theater in downtown Champaign is a small venue which shows films not normally playing in the box office. The theatre is the only single-screen movie theatre still in existence and daily operation as a movie theatre in Champaign-Urbana. The Virginia, which hosts Roger Ebert's Annual Overlooked Film Festival, is also single-screen, but only opens for special showings and events. Parkland College in Champaign also features a small theatre of its own, the Parkland College Theatre. SPORTS While greater Champaign-Urbana does not feature any professional sports teams, the University Of Illinois fields many teams which compete in the Big Ten Conference . Two large sports centers are located in the southern portion of Champaign. Memorial Stadium is a Football arena where the Fighting Illini football team plays, and Assembly Hall is the home of the highly-successful Fighting Illini basketball team. FAMOUS PEOPLE The following people are from the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area or attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
TOURISM AND RECREATION Museums
Parks and Recreation
OUTLYING SUBURBS Several suburban and small urban areas are dependent on the Champaign-Urbana area for economic and political reasons. Most of these cities and towns lie in Champaign County . Most of these areas are populated primarily with commuters who work in Champaign or Urbana, and choose to live outside of the city. Due to the fact that many of these small towns consist entirely of highly paid professors, or technology professionals who work for the University or in the Research Park, these areas often have a higher median household income than Champaign or Urbana . The suburban part of the Metropolitan area is constructed in a way that most from the coasts find odd. Instead of a sprawling suburban skirt that encircles the urban area, the urban area is surrounded by farmland, with small suburban villages consisting mainly of residential areas dotting the landscape. Most of these villages are home to only 100 to 500 people, though some have as many as 5,000 residents. Unlike most small towns in the midwest they are very affluent due to the high incomes of the residents and the resulting high tax revenue collected by the village. This movement of tax dollars from Champaign and Urbana to their dependent areas is a point of constant strife between the cities and the suburbs. |