Which suburb less than 1 hour from downtown? (Chicago, Naperville: houses, safe neighborhood)

[tiyakhambadkone]

We(me, my husband and a toddler) recently moved to Chicago and we live in the city of Chicago (LakeView area), work at downtown (15 mins by bus from union station).
We are planning to buy a house in the suburbs. We do not have much idea about Chicago suburbs.

We are looking for a place with good schools, safe neighborhood, sizable Indian(south Asian) population, commute to downtown (my office) should not be more than 1 hr.

I was considering Naperville but commute from home to station 15mins + metra ride 45 mins + union station to office 15 to 20 mins. So one way distance is 1hr 15 mins to 30 mins. This is not what we want.

Any north-western suburb, you think would meet our criteria?

[Alacran]

Niles

[doodlemagic]

To me it seems like almost every burb is less than an hour unless your getting out to Oswego or St Charles. Naperville would be an option if you lived close to Rt 59 or Downtown Station, shorter than 15 minutes to train and catch like a 38 minute express train to and from.

If you're looking to get a little closer somewhere near Main St stop in Downers Grove or you could look at Lombard, Elmhurst, LaGrange, I'm more familiar with west burbs so that's mainly what I'm throwing out there.

Naperville is a great option for Indian/Asian population

[fusillirob1983]

Skokie I think has a larger than average Indian population. The Indian population in Naperville is quite large, but you're correct that the door to door commute will likely exceed an hour.

[7Mike]

I just moved from Lakeview to the north suburbs for school reasons, perhaps I can throw out some info. I grew up in the suburbs.

By Car:
For under 1 hour, you'll want to look at the closest north & northwest suburbs...Evanston / Skokie / Niles / Park Ridge. I just moved to Glenview and I commute to the north side of Chicago, so far north of downtown, and it can take me 45 min quite often.

Any farther than that will easily be over 60 min. Google Maps is showing that Northbrook to downtown departing at 7:30 am is between 55min and 1h 50 min.

However, the schools are generally considered better a bit more north, in the North Shore suburbs .... Wilmette / Glenview / Northbrook / Winnetka / etc.. But the costs of nice houses also skyrockets as you cross into these school districts.

But you can commute downtown via the Metra instead of car to cut down on your time.
Glenview Station to Union Station is 35 min.
Wilmette's station on Green Bay also takes 36 min to Ogilvie.

I grew up in that area as an Asian (not Indian though) and highly recommend it for kids. It's why I moved back from Chicago.

[amd555]

Originally Posted by fusillirob1983

Skokie I think has a larger than average Indian population. The Indian population in Naperville is quite large, but you're correct that the door to door commute will likely exceed an hour.

Skokie/Niles has a very large population.

[mwj119]

Budget?

Recommendations(proximity to the city/education/asian community as the leading factors):

-Glenview ($$$)
-Oak Brook ($$$)
-North Evanston ($$$)
-Arlington Heights ($$)
-Buffalo Grove ($$)

[fusillirob1983]

Originally Posted by mwj119

Budget?

Recommendations(proximity to the city/education/asian community as the leading factors):

-Glenview ($$$)
-Oak Brook ($$$)
-North Evanston ($$$)
-Arlington Heights ($$)
-Buffalo Grove ($$)

Buffalo Grove is 50 minutes to an hour on the train alone.

[SonySegaTendo617]

Originally Posted by fusillirob1983

Buffalo Grove is 50 minutes to an hour on the train alone.

Also another negative is that the North Central Service Metra line only operates on weekdays, and NOT on Saturdays or Sundays/holidays. If you don't mind that tradeoff, the closer you lived to Deerfield Road(or Parkway west of Milwaukee Ave/IL Hwy. 21), the better. Since it is a straight shot east to the Deerfield Metra station on the Milwaukee District North line, which does have parking(not sure if a fee is charged or not. I wouldn't be surprised if it did?) and weekend Metra service.

[asliarun]

Northwest and closer to downtown and O'Hare: Skokie, Niles, Des Plaines, Mt Prospect area have a fair number of Indians. However, this is a mixed bag in terms of schools district.

Moving further North and NorthEast: Evanston (especially the Western suburbs of Evanston aka Skokie-Evanston aka Skevanston), South-West Wilmette (again Wilmette bordering Evanston), Glenview have comparatively less Indians (still it is not too bad in terms of diversity or even Indian population - just relatively speaking) but also have really good Metra access to downtown and in most cases have extremely good schools. Evanston for example is about 20 minutes on Metra from downtown.

If you move further Northwest and get to Northbrook, Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills and the Stevenson high school district, again, there are a fair number of Indians but now you are further away from downtown which may be okay if you are close to a Metra, and the schools are really good too. However, the commute will likely be more like Naperville.