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Based on the great postings here by LK, JJSki and Chet - I think we've narrowed it down to these two areas. Am spending next Wednesday exploring to get a sense of vibe, etc.
Both areas provide us with housing options between 800-$1M. LG definitely seems to have a more urban feel downtown, which we love while GE is more quaint. While I would consider Hinsdale again, there are less options in our budget. We can spend more...but am restraining our budget.
GE seems to win out for me in terms of school size, whereas LG feeds into larger Lyon Township.
Both give us train access to the Loop but GE appears a bit further to the get ORD for travel.
So anyway, wanted to ask for your feedback since you live in these areas.
If you can get a house you like in the heart of La Grange, I would go for it. Sometimes I think it would have been a better fit for me, and we actually attempted to buy multiple houses there. But since I now work in the burbs nearly all of the time, it's not bothering me at all to have the lighter traffic and slower pace of Glen Ellyn.
Many of the differences will be obvious to you once you visit, so I'll point out some less obvious advantages of each area that I've only realized since living here (and we still visit friends in La Grange somewhat often).
Advantages of La Grange:
1. Larger downtown area with more going on. I love Nickson's, Palmers, and the energy it has on weekends.
2. Shorter commute in to the city.
3. It just feels more "connected" to Chicago, and more people work downtown and spend time in the city.
4. More consistent architecture in the historic district. Fewer "tear downs" and showy McMansions (though you can certainly see those in Hinsdale if you miss them).
Advantages of Glen Ellyn:
1. Feels like a lower-density metro area of it's own, when combined with Wheaton and Lombard. You can drive to everything very easily and traffic is rarely bad. Chicago is easily accessible, but also easily ignored.
2. Access to Naperville's amenities and other "traditional new suburb" amenities, like huge stadium seating movie theaters. You are closer to the "new".
3. Access to natural areas that are larger and more contiguous. The Prairie Path and Great Western Trail. More trees. The Morton Arboretum and Cantigny. Just a more "green" feel in general. You can drive 30 minutes to rural areas.
4. Child care is less expensive. Everything is just a little bit more oriented to families.
5. More "laid back"? Slower pace?
Similarities:
1. Older "core" of tree-lined streets and vintage houses with a "newer" post-war section to the south of a major arterial.
2. Train-oriented downtowns.
3. Trader Joe's, Whole Foods near by (Wheaton for us, Hinsdale for La Grange), farmers markets, etc.
4. Great community spirit and events, epitomized by the Pet Parade in La Grange (sounds tame, but is an excuse for everyone to throw an outdoor party) and July 4th in Glen Ellyn.
5. High Schools in same conference, regularly play sports against each other.
Both have excellent access to things like Oak Brook and O'Hare (it takes me about a half hour to get there if I avoid rush hour). La Grange is a LOT better for getting to Midway.
You just made the 3 of us feel really special, it’s kind of cool being called out in a discussion thread title.
LK almost ended up in LG so he is probably writing a book on this LG vs. GE topic. Since he is such a hardcore engineer it will be full of numbers for you to go over as well…
I would suggest adding western springs to your LG visit – they are stone’s throw apart and really considered sister towns. If you were to put LG/WS together they would still carry a smaller footprint then Hinsdale.
Specifically around ORD and LG. We travel a quite a bit for work also… That was another determining factor in choosing LG. It’s a 20-25 minute cab or uber ride to either Midway or Ohare at 25$ even in rush hour. Also note it’s a 25$ uber ride from Loop to LG… this again really highlights the easy big city connection… This eliminates airport stress associated to the drive and parking…
… Your healthy budget will allow you to get something really nice in whatever location you ultimately decide. I truly believe you will appreciate and enjoy both highly desirable areas selected. I would advise sticking walking distance to metra station and core of town wherever you decide. I consider core proximity (in historic district) the equivalent of lake front property…
Honestly I would not get too hung up on the "perfect" town.
There are lots of nice houses in pretty much all the desirable towns that fall into your price range and depending on your overall financial picture there are lots of valid reasons to find the best fit between what you are comfortable spending and which of your "musts vs wants" are checked off by EACH house that available when you decide to make an offer. What I think just about everybody that owns a home in these towns at this price range also will face is a sense of "what is a compromise for me is probably a compromise for my neighbors" and that tends to be a POSITIVE for things like "neighborhood cohesiveness". Now maybe this sort of thing is so obvious folks will call me daft for mentioning it, but my experience is that when you are shopping well developed mostly affluent towns you are already in a fairly small pool of buyers, as folks like LK himself admitted, he really liked several towns but was disappointed that the homes available in his prefered price range did not match the aesthetics or amenities that were important to him. That fact has motivated to compromise on the home that he selected in Glen Ellyn as it mostly "check the boxes" that are important to him, and he may yet do some renovations to add some of the features that he'd like but were not available on homes that otherwise fit his criteria. THIS is more and more the "standard" for smart shoppers -- for folks like this it is better than getting a super-deluxe home in a part of town that is somehow "location challenged". And to be sure, there are some folks that will accept a "less than ideal location" if it means they'll still access to things that are a higher priority to them, whether that is more desirable school attendance area, or quicker walk to the train, or maybe a home that already has the "add-ons" that will make it move-in ready...
SO, given this sort of "reality based decision making" what I recommend is having a little family discussion over what parameters are going to be part of the whole decision. If OP and spouse absolutely do not want to rent that sort of means they'll have to choose from available inventory at the time of move. It is not uncommon to have a "short list" that does include homes in several towns -- maybe in addition to LaGrange & Glen Ellyn you do have some homes in Elmhurst, Western Springs, Clarendon Hills, Hinsdale, Wheaton, Downers Grove, and Naperville at the first cut. In any of these towns the real data on things like commute times and school quality and even taxes are certainly closer than if one were to be casting a net that covered the whole region, and given the likelihood that folks at your price point are making similar salaries regardless of which town they choose it kind of becomes pointless to leave any options out. Believe me, the minor differences between each town are easy to adapt to. If one town has a little higher taxes but less neighbors that take lavish vacations you live with it...
Ideally there are not so many homes that you can get to see all them each in-person: the impression you get not just from on-line photos & maps but actually walking around the home & neighborhood goes a long way to reducing the chance of "buyer's remorse". Any house that just does not resonate after such a visit is then going to get eliminated. If it turns out that your "wants and needs" are best met by a lovely home in the portion of Naperville or Wheaton that will be walk-to-train close to the core make the offer on that house and THROW AWAY all the sales brochures from the other homes when the offer is accepted. Don't second guess, don't obsess, just move forward knowing that there are plenty of happy homeowners in EACH of the towns...
Thanks LK! Great perspective. I'm looking forward to spending a little bit of time in GE and LG to form my opinions. I will actually be working in the western burbs (but traveling often) but my wife will on occasion need to commute downtown so we decided to split our commute time. Access to ORD or MDW is important to us. What strikes me about LG (based on this forum) is that it seems a nice mixed of that urban/suburban feel and perhaps easier to meet new people. Hoping that kids activities will also help us out with forming new friendships as well.
Do you have any perspective on schools in GE, specifically size? That is what drew my wife to ask me to explore the area as she liked the smaller student population. She gathered that the elementary and middle school up near the Lake GE would be walkable/bikable for the kids.
The historic overlay district of Wheaton would provide a lot of what you describe. It's just north of the downtown, less than two miles west of Glen Ellyn's core. There's a lot of overlap and camaraderie between the two towns. Ditto for Western Springs and La Grange. Sister towns, as JJski said.
Do you have any perspective on schools in GE, specifically size? That is what drew my wife to ask me to explore the area as she liked the smaller student population. She gathered that the elementary and middle school up near the Lake GE would be walkable/bikable for the kids.
If you end up in the northern part of Glen Ellyn (north of Roosevelt Road), you will be looking at District 41 schools. There are four K-5 elementary schools in the district and all of them have about 500 kids. The all feed in to Hadley Middle School for 6-8 grade, and then Glenbard West for high school, which currently has something like 2,300 students (enrollment is dropping again after a recent spike).
The K-5 schools are set up with geographic boundaries to be "neighborhood schools", so most kids can easily walk to school. Hadley has a bus that picks kids up at designated spots. Most of the high school students near me either walk or are dropped of. We have been very happy with the quality of schooling so far, though we have had many new things implemented over the past few years that are controversial with some parents (teacher specialization, some mutli-age classrooms, "problem based learning" exercises, Spanish immersion classes at all grade levels phased in for grades 1 & 2 so far and adding one grade each year).
Additionally, there was recently an overcrowding issue that was alleviated by adding additions to each of the four elementary schools. However, they have not yet figured out what to do at Hadley so they still have some portable classrooms there for the time being.
Another difference between Glen Ellyn and La Grange: Our schools are all surrounded by ample green space. You'll notice that Cosley other D102 schools in La Grange have pretty much zero grass for kids to play on (Cosley is surrounded by black top). We have very large green playground areas by comparison.
Last edited by Lookout Kid; 11-04-2015 at 02:00 PM..
Thanks LK! Great perspective. I'm looking forward to spending a little bit of time in GE and LG to form my opinions. I will actually be working in the western burbs (but traveling often) but my wife will on occasion need to commute downtown so we decided to split our commute time. Access to ORD or MDW is important to us. What strikes me about LG (based on this forum) is that it seems a nice mixed of that urban/suburban feel and perhaps easier to meet new people. Hoping that kids activities will also help us out with forming new friendships as well.
Do you have any perspective on schools in GE, specifically size? That is what drew my wife to ask me to explore the area as she liked the smaller student population. She gathered that the elementary and middle school up near the Lake GE would be walkable/bikable for the kids.
If you do want to get a sense for what each part of each town means for attendance area and how that impacts things like "walk to school vs ride a bus" that absolutely can be a decision driver. It certainly is something that nearly all my neighbors in D181 really do appreciate about how our schools have been organized, but it is mostly a "hindsight" kind of thing. There are very few folks that moved here with kids that were used to riding a bus, so they can't really make direct comparisons, though the sense is that since so many kids do amble home on their own it does create an atmosphere where LOTS of kids do engage in the sort of pick-up games of baseball / basketball or just playing with neighbor kids. THAT SAID, I certainly know some kids that despite this POTENTIAL for easy "child initiated free play"/ friendship had parents that were the epitome of over scheduling play-date creating freaks...
For folks in LaGrange there are some that certainly can walk to K-6 Cossitt Ave School, but most of those kids would need a bus ride to the middle school, and all of them would need to ride the bus to LT frosh-soph campus, though some might be able to walk to Jr-Sr campus...
Pretty sure the same sorts of things are going to be encountered in most parts of D41 which cover Glen Ellyn too.
The smart move would be for us to rent and then give us time to look around. Stupidly, we simply don't want to have to move twice. Moving is exhausting and I think we have it in us to make one last move and settle down until the kids are on to college.
You all bring up good points. The walkability is important but more to a downtown retail core than to schools. I think we all glamorize the kids being able to walk but more often then not, parents end up driving. And, given their rapid transition from elementary to middle school, and HS, it's short lived and not a smart way to base housing decisions.
LK brings up a point that I hadn't thought about, which is green space at schools. That is food for thought!!
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The details do shake out...
