Joseph Budka has lived in Chicago for seven years, at seven different addresses.
After a stint in his college dorm at the Art Institute of Chicago, he spent a summer couch-surfing and hostel-hopping, then moved on to apartments in or near Humboldt Park, Lincoln Square, Wicker Park and Logan Square before relocating, once again, this time to the house west of Logan Square he now shares with friends.
“It’s very cathartic,” the 26-year-old sculptor and millworker says of moving.
“You shed one skin, and you grow another, you know? And throughout the process, you look at everything you own and you wonder why you have this thing — it’s completely useless, and you never use it. You kind of purge — getting rid of the elements of your physical life that you don’t need anymore.”
With Chicago approaching what is traditionally its biggest moving day of the year, Oct. 1 — a date that for most of us evokes lost heirlooms, sulking friends and aching backs — citizens such as Budka represent the other side of the coin.
Moving at least every two years within the city, these hardy urban nomads have forged a lifestyle based, in part, on the continual pursuit of a more attractive living space, a more suitable roommate, a better deal or a nicer neighborhood.
And, for the time being at least, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m just kind of a free spirit,” says Chelcie Porter, 25, of Pilsen (and recently Garfield Park, Alaska and the South Side), a photographer who works in a custom framing gallery. “I love life, and I love moving to new places and discovering new things.”
Demographers say data on these high-frequency movers — we’ll call them moveaholics — are not readily available.
But the group does appear to have characteristics in common with a larger group that some researchers refer to, unofficially, as “The Young and the Restless”: the young, college-educated, single Americans who move more than most demographic groups.
About 75 percent of single, college-educated Americans ages 25 to 39 reported moving at least once between 1995 and 2000, according to Rachel Franklin, the deputy director of the Association of American Geographers.
That compares with about 46 percent of the general population.
Single Americans ages 25 to 39 who were not college educated moved somewhat less than their degree-holding peers, with about 63 percent reporting a move between 1995 and 2000, according to a 2003 Census Bureau report by Franklin.
The moveaholic lifestyle is a large enough phenomenon in Chicago that it comes with its own touchstones and trajectories. Several say they started in college and intend to stop when they get married or have children. Many report stints on the North Side, and Canto Lee, 38, a loan officer and frequent mover who resides in Lincoln Square, says he sees a geographical pattern.
“A lot of people start out in Lakeview or Lincoln Park, and you’ll live in the smallest apartment you can just to live in that neighborhood,” he says.
“And as you get to know the city, you tend to go to different neighborhoods, and you don’t tend to spend as much. You don’t have to be in the center of everything anymore because you’ve realized that you go through a bunch of different neighborhoods, anyway. And, again, you might meet somebody, become friends, they need a roommate, and then you move in with that person.”
Amenities are part of the story, too, says Lee, who says he knows a lot of people who move every two to three years.
“Restaurants and bars and stores start to open up in these neighborhoods that a few years ago nobody wanted to go to, and it makes it a better neighborhood to be in, so people start moving over to those neighborhoods.”
Even moveaholics dislike the moving process.
“It’s always a headache,” Budka says.
“You never know how much stuff you have until you have to move it all at once, and being a sculptor, my work is packaged for protection in millions of boxes. I have an entire garage full of tools and equipment; some of it weighs more than I do. It takes a very large truck for me to move it all.”
What sets people such as Budka apart in a nation where the average citizen moves 12 times in his or her entire life, and a major move is widely considered one of life’s more stressful events, is how much they are willing to endure for what others might consider a marginal improvement in lifestyle.
“If the move is intended to put me in a situation where I’m improving my life, then it’s worth the effort,” Budka says.
Budka compares the end of a living arrangement to the end of a romantic relationship: “You can always kind of feel it coming on the horizon for some reason.”
But there also are clear-cut signs and signals: “Every time I’ve moved, something about the space itself was no longer working. One particular space, I did not get along with anybody I was living with, so I decided to bow out gracefully and say, ‘You know what? You guys have fun without me.’
“In another space, it was actually a very dangerous neighborhood. The icing on the cake was, one of my roommates got shot at. He didn’t get hit, but he was talking to the wrong person and ended up in a very bad argument.”
Eventually, Budka says, he wants to own some land and have a house “that is really, truly mine. If it needs to be changed, I no longer have to move. I can knock out walls, and no one can stop me.”
As for the present: “I kind of believe your home is your castle. But it doesn’t always have to be the same castle.”
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nschoenberg@tribune.com
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1. FALL 2000 — Moved into a dorm at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 162 N. State St. Moved out because he wasn’t taking summer classes. Also, the dormitories “have no character at all. All the rooms and halls were primer white. It was like living in an asylum.It drove me nuts.”
2. SUMMER 2001 — Stayed at the Arlington House International Hostel, 616 W. Arlington Place, in Lincoln Park and John’s Last Resort, a hostel near McKinley Park. Also stayed on friends’ couches and slept in the park a few times. “I figured, what the [heck]. It’s summer, and I’m 19. Go with it.”
3. SEPTEMBER 2001 — Moved to an apartment west of Humboldt Park, near Potomac and Spaulding. Moved because “my roommates had ruffled the feathers of some local gang members, and I was making enough money to afford a better place.”
4. JANUARY 2004 — Moved to an apartment in Lincoln Square, near the intersection of Lincoln and Wilson. The roommate situation didn’t work. Moved “for spite.”
5. JANUARY 2005 — Moved to a studio in Wicker Park, near Western and LeMoyne. Left because the apartment went condo; also, “I grew tired of the space and its lack of a homey feel. Large empty cement boxes don’t really lend themselves to feeling cozy.”
6. DECEMBER 2005 — Moved to an apartment in the 2800 block of North Troy, near Logan Square. Moved because of a “difference of philosophy” with his landlord.
7. MARCH 2006 — Moved to a rented house he shares with friends in the 2300 block of North Monticello west of Logan Square. “I love these guys, and my work space is perfect for my needs right now.”
