Where can a family live without a car? (Chicago, Wheaton: sale, 2013)

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by asliarun

I had a very similar list, although I do have a car. Plus, for me, I really like seeing other people walking on the street and find it depressing if I don't.

I live in downtown Evanston, near Davis station, and here is how your list works for me:

• grocery store -
  - 1 minute walk - small neighborhood grocery store (Davis Pantry) and 7/11
  - 5 minute walk - Whole Foods and CVS
  - 15 minute walk - Trader Joe's and Jewel Osco
• hardware store
  - 1 minute walk - Ace's Hardware
  - 5 minute walk - Radio Shack. All phone companies (ATT, Sprint etc) are in a 5 minute walk as well. There are also 2-3 computer and shoe repair shops in a 5 minute radius
• park
  - 5 minute walk - decent sized park with a children's play area, a rose garden
  - 10 minute park - lake, lots of parks and fountains on the lake, and beaches including a doggy beach
• gym
  - 5 minute walk - Evanston Athletic Club, LA Fitness, many other specialized gyms, barre, yoga shops etc. There's also a boxing club nearby. And there's YMCA in a 2 minute walk.
• library
  - 5 minute walk - Evanston library - quite decent sized, lots of options for kids
• bar
  - 5 minute walk - haven't counted but there are easily 10+ decent options - Taco Diablo, Celtic Knot, Farmhouse, World Of Beer, Prairie Moon, Tommy Nevin's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Bat 17, Chili's
• restaurant
  - 5 minute walk - Again, easily 10-20 options
  - 15 minute walk - many more options on Chicago/North Clark near Dempster and Main. Then, there's Hecky's BBQ on the other side
• post office
  - next door

Besides this, there's
- a huge doctor's practice in a 2 minute walk
- a pharmacy in a 5 minute walk (although not 24hr)
- El (purple line), Metra, and bus stops are next door
- Northwestern Univ is a 5-10 minute walk - and they have some very nice hobby classes in their Norris center
- most of the major banks are in a 5 minute walking distance
- lots of clothes shops and hair stylists
- World Market that sells lots of interesting stuff for the house, imported beers, and decent furniture - next door. Besides this, there's another smaller furniture store next door
- Movie theater (Century cinema) - next door
- 2-3 decent hotels - 5 minute walk
- pet store, hobby shop, bike shop, liquor store, 2 bakeries - all 2 minute walk away

I haven't lived elsewhere in Chicago so I cannot do any kind of comparison. But I do love the easy access to most things. I feel safe to walk even at late night - and especially because you actually see people on the streets even at night, and many of them are students. Unlike office districts, the area doesn't go dead after office hours. And the lake is nice. Some genuinely nice beaches too.

The one aspect of commuting that truly sucks is if you have to travel to the Western suburbs. There's poor train connectivity and in most cases, you have to go downtown first and then go wherever else you need to go.

How far from Dave's Italian Kitchen?

[solarballoon]

Is Elmhurst set up similar to downtown Evanston?
Too bad there are not any high caliber colleges in the suburbs. They tend to bring a lot of interesting things for adults.

[chet everett]

Evanston is a suburb...

And although Elmhurst College is orders of magnitude smaller than Northwestern it does have some well respected programs.

I agree that colleges do add to the mix of social / cultural amenities, and the degree to which this is a big factor is related to how isolated the town otherwise would be -- in more rural communities it is bigger impact.

North Central in Naperville, Benedictine in Lisle, St. Francis in Joliet, Lewis in Romeville, and places named for they towns they inhabit like Wheaton, Elmhurst or Lake Forest all have less impact on their towns than does someplace like Knox College in Galesburg....

[chitownperson]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Isn't oxymoronic to argue that something is both more compact and spread out? The core is the core and the periphery is the rest of the stuff, no?

If a town is really uniform affleunt and the core busineses that serves the residents know that folks will pay a premium for high quality products that pretty much guarantees the kind of shops selling fancy meats and produce that one finds in someplace like Western Springs, alternatively if the average shopper is content to get some highly processed fast food so long as it is cheap that leads to the sort of scenario that plagues many of the so called "food deserts"...

A town can be "compact" while having amenities spread wider through the relative scale of the town... This seemed pretty obvious, simple and not "oxymoronic". Depending on the scale of the core relative to the scale of the town, the number of secondary groupings of amenities, and the density relative to the core etc... will either allow people to have easier or more difficult access of amenities without a car... It's simple really.

You originally said that uniform affluent towns would allow for greater access of amenities by foot because the town would attract businesses, which is nonsense, as it would not change how far people may live from where those amenities are. Now you're saying uniform affluent towns attract more higher end businesses, which I'd agree with, but still has nothing to do with the proximities from residence to store. Having a few fancy meat stores does little to change one's access by foot to "amenities" if the majority of the village does not live a short walk away from "amenities", plus there are many other things that are under the umbrella of "amenities" than fancy meat stores, like eateries, the gym, hardware store, stores of many kinds, the cinema/theater, libraries, the trains, the buses etc...

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by chet everett

In principle the usefulness of data in isolation is often not as great as that as the richer explanation of how that data relates to the real world experience but when that process gets subverted by those who wave away data that conflicts with thier biases and idealized viewpoints the end result is not "contextulization" but merely fictionalization.

Data about towns which are smaller and more dense are by definition easier to walk from border to border but towns that are only a little less dense but fortunate to have a uniformly high level of household income that is attractive to the kinds of businesses that modern familes appreciate are likely more truly livable without need for a personal vehicle.

[nikitakolata]

Originally Posted by solarballoon

Is Elmhurst set up similar to downtown Evanston?
Too bad there are not any high caliber colleges in the suburbs. They tend to bring a lot of interesting things for adults.

Elmhurst is similar, but smaller than downtown Evanston. I've lived in both, in fact I lived in virtually the same location as the other poster that mentioned Evanston lives currently (Ridge and Davis).

If I'm weighing downtowns only, I would give the edge to Evanston. I really enjoyed living there and had there been a house in the downtown area that we both liked and could afford we would have moved back there after our stint in Chicago. But, the houses near downtown Evanston are more expensive and older and did not have the type of layout we wanted. I still miss Tapas Barcelona though.

Where I like Elmhurst more is that I was able to get a house with an attached garage and bigger yard. Plus, it's much easier to get around the region from Elmhurst than it is from Evanston because Evanston is not convenient to any expressway. We drive to visit family and friends. My husband and I rarely drive during the workweek since we can walk everywhere we need to get to, but we do drive to visit family in Evanston/St. Charles/Aurora/etc. If our friends and family were also in town we would probably almost never drive at all.

Elmhurst does have some interesting things going on. For example, the park district offers a class on cutting stones, which I'm particularly interested in since I make jewelry. The lapidary museum is pretty cool, too (and within walking distance).

[asliarun]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

How far from Dave's Italian Kitchen?

It has been a while! :-)
They used to make some good handmade pasta and canoli.

It is opposite to whole foods so a 10 minute walk.

Didn't mean to sound too much like a fanboy. But yes, Evanston downtown is a nice place. Very much a suburb, but also a real downtown, not one of those two building places. So I would say downtown Evanston is somewhat of a hybrid kind of place.

Just wish the schools could be better. The other suburbs of Chicago seem to have really widened the gap in the last decade or two. and this is a huge huge point. But I digress.

[chet everett]

I like some aspects of Evanston but agree that despite the positives for folks that can work in Evanston or somewhere nearby with good transit access (like Loyola) the challenges of getting to/ from other parts of the region are a negative when comparing the town to places that are a little better laid out. And given the positives of other areas both inside Chicago and in other nice suburbs I don't know that the "widened gap" in school performance is the biggest factor that Evanston has to worry about.

In a funny way the big "back to the city" push that Rahm loves to make headlines with when he gives tax breaks to google or some other mega billion corporation probably hurts a place like Evanston more than some town that has a big drug company or other "office campus" -- while technically there is an "incubator" for start-ups in Evanston it'll never be as "hip" as Chicago itself. And all the walkable amenities near the core of Evanston are possible becuase it has largely preserved its scale instead of doing some car-free plaza/ mall or embracing an ugly "strip mall" when developers want to plunk down generic retail space... But unlike Chicago where the Loop truly is a "hub" that serves to concentrate not just city dwellers but those from the suburbs that want to work and play in Chicago there is little to really serve that "magnetic" appeal in Evanston.

In times past the "quiet" of some bedroom communities was far deeper than it is today with the increased affleunce and sophistication of both residents and business owners striving for something that is more vibrant. Evanston, being adjacent to Chicago has never been as "sleepy" and subsequently the has neither been any great push to amp things too much. Odd to thing that in some measures Naperville had really leapfrogged past Evanston...

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by chet everett

In a funny way the big "back to the city" push that Rahm loves to make headlines with when he gives tax breaks to google or some other mega billion corporation probably hurts a place like Evanston more than some town that has a big drug company or other "office campus" -- while technically there is an "incubator" for start-ups in Evanston it'll never be as "hip" as Chicago itself. And all the walkable amenities near the core of Evanston are possible becuase it has largely preserved its scale instead of doing some car-free plaza/ mall or embracing an ugly "strip mall" when developers want to plunk down generic retail space... But unlike Chicago where the Loop truly is a "hub" that serves to concentrate not just city dwellers but those from the suburbs that want to work and play in Chicago there is little to really serve that "magnetic" appeal in Evanston

I disagree with this partially... I think most people who move to Evanston from the city still work in the Loop, and the appeal over a North Side of Chicago neighborhood is the fact that Evanston has a handful of really great elementary schools, one good middle school, and a good high school. In some ways Evanston feels like an extension of the North Side to a lot of people, and the extra transit option of the Purple Line gives people access to other amenities on the North Side.

People are always surprised when I point out that Evanston and La Grange are about the same distance from State and Madison in the Loop, but somehow Evanston seems closer to people because it actually borders the city. And it's considerably closer to Lake View, Lincoln Square and other North Side neighborhoods that may still have a lot of friends or social activities for people who moved to Evanston from the city. And Evanston just has a nice "feel" to it compared to most suburbs...

What many people don't realize about Evanston is that the schools are not universally good, and that there are many pockets with significant crime issues. But once again, I find that the Chicago region does a nice job of marketplace pricing for the best amenities and worst drawbacks, since most real estate buyers are keenly aware of school district boundaries and transit locations. But if you haven't done your research, you can get burned in Evanston.

[chitownperson]

Originally Posted by chet everett

In principle the usefulness of data in isolation is often not as great as that as the richer explanation of how that data relates to the real world experience but when that process gets subverted by those who wave away data that conflicts with thier biases and idealized viewpoints the end result is not "contextulization" but merely fictionalization.

Data about towns which are smaller and more dense are by definition easier to walk from border to border but towns that are only a little less dense but fortunate to have a uniformly high level of household income that is attractive to the kinds of businesses that modern familes appreciate are likely more truly livable without need for a personal vehicle.

I can only imagine that the emocon is in reference to the quote above as highlighting it does nothing to change it's idiocy. The sentence you highlight only highlights your point that "true livability" in terms of walkability has something to do with uniformly higher household income, and you later add fancy meat shops etc... which is nonsense, as having the money to by expensive salami wouldn't place the people who don't live in walkable distance to the core any closer, which is the case in the majority of uniformly affluent towns around Chicago.