The University of Chicago?

I'm currently a senior in Charlottesville, VA. After a lot of deliberation, I've finally decided to spend the next four years at the University of Chicago. I chose Chicago mainly over Penn, Brown, Duke and Northwestern because its economics program just too good to ignore. I'm also a very sociable guy and since Charlottesville is a huge college town (home of "The University") I've been to quite a few frat parties and the like. I've heard that Chicago's social life wasn't too great and I was wondering if this was really the case? Is Hyde Park a typical college town? Does it have a lot of good bars, coffeeshops, stores, etc? How is the crime rate in and around the University of Chicago area? How accessible is downtown Chicago from the University of Chicago? Do a lot of students go downtown on the weekends? Could you recommend any nice, upscale coffeeshops (preferably with wireless internet) in or near downtown that a college student could frequent in the afternoons? And one last question: how do native Chicagoans view the University of Chicago? Most of my friends, when they found out I chose Chicago over Brown and Duke, thought I was crazy. Only my teachers and counselors knew how great the school really is. Is this the case in Chicago as well? Or is the University of Chicago well-respected there? How do you guys view it compared to Northwestern? (My counselor, who's from the Northeast-- Boston and NYC, I think-- told me that UChicago was "on par" with Harvard/Yale/MIT/Stanford while Northwestern was "on par" with Duke/Johns Hopkins. Is this accurate?) Thanks for your help. Can't wait to see Chicago this September.>