City vs suburbs living (Chicago, Naperville: property taxes, prices, versus)

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by BleedCubbieBlue

Meh. Peace out. going to lollapalooza now. Goodnight Chet.

Bread and circuses - Wikipedia

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out.., high civil office,.. — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

[justalicious6989]

Originally Posted by chiMT

Suburbs generally offer a more peaceful environment with more "space" for living and development. Cities offer more activity and variety.

Of course, one person's peace can be another person's boredom. I moved to the city because I was very bored of suburb life. But after living in Chicago for several years I can see that one day when I have a family, a suburb may be more appealing.

There's nothing saying you can't still go into the city whenever you have free time. Instead of being in the midst of the hustle and bustle, you can choose to go visit the city when you feel like it. I feel like, once I got what I wanted from the city life, that will be a nice option.

I must say that I'd rather live in the Chicago city my whole life than a suburb in the middle of nowhere (as opposed to nearby a large city). The Chicago suburbs are cool like that.

When referring to the suburbs, most do not have large swaths of land! Burbank, EP, Oak Lawn, Evanston, Cicero Etc.... Sometimes I don't feel like I left the city when traveling to them.

[chiMT]

That's true, some suburbs (although in the minority) feel a bit like the city. But I think even those still feel like suburbs.

[ChicagoMeO]

Originally Posted by MassVt

In 21st century America, NO school system wil be 95% white.

After a certain age, the importance of nightlife fades a bit. A place like Naperville is certainly big enough to have decent attractions like good restaurants, whcih will satisfy the needs of most people. And you certainly don't need to go to the big city to enjoy a good meal.

yeah but Naperville is currently having a problem with drunks causing problems at the bars (guess the ones at night time). sheesh! Naperville of all places.

[Aleking]

as much as i want to continue living in the city, it's simply not affordable for middle class families with kids and we'll probably roll out when the dude is 4 or 5. FWIW my SO cannot drive due to medical reasons so finding walkable grocery and transit options will be tough.

if you make and upper-middle or upper class income (well above city median) city living is obviously superior

[chiMT]

Originally Posted by Aleking

as much as i want to continue living in the city, it's simply not affordable for middle class families with kids and we'll probably roll out when the dude is 4 or 5. FWIW my SO cannot drive due to medical reasons so finding walkable grocery and transit options will be tough.

if you make and upper-middle or upper class income (well above city median) city living is obviously superior

Unless you like the suburb environment more.

[chicago103]

Originally Posted by Aleking

as much as i want to continue living in the city, it's simply not affordable for middle class families with kids and we'll probably roll out when the dude is 4 or 5. FWIW my SO cannot drive due to medical reasons so finding walkable grocery and transit options will be tough.

if you make and upper-middle or upper class income (well above city median) city living is obviously superior

This depends, have you considered outer city neighborhoods on the far NW or SW sides? Plenty of middle class families with kids live in those parts, it might take some lifestyle adjustments coming from Uptown, it might not be for everyone but I always recommend at least giving them a look when someone says something like this. In any event I don't buy the idea that it is impossible for a middle income family with kids to find an affordable walk able community somewhere in the Chicagoland area, either city or suburbs. As long as you don't have big house/yard and lifestyle expectations it is very doable.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by chicago103

This depends, have you considered outer city neighborhoods on the far NW or SW sides? Plenty of middle class families with kids live in those parts, it might take some lifestyle adjustments coming from Uptown, it might not be for everyone but I always recommend at least giving them a look when someone says something like this.

Why? Unless you HAVE to live in the city due to your job (like CPD, CPS, etc.), why would you pick a far northwestern or far southwestern city neighborhood over a nice inner ring suburb? Those far-flung neighborhoods have inferior amenities and often longer commute times--in addition to the fact that you are still stuck with CPS schools. Other than bragging rights about still "being in the city", which is a meaningless designation at that point, there is little reason to consider those neighborhoods over inner-ring suburbs like Oak Park, Evanston, Park Ridge, Brookfield, La Grange, etc. Heck, Oak Park is actually CLOSER to the Loop than either the far NW or SW sides.

[chicago103]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Why? Unless you HAVE to live in the city due to your job (like CPD, CPS, etc.), why would you pick a far northwestern or far southwestern city neighborhood over a nice inner ring suburb? Those far-flung neighborhoods have inferior amenities and often longer commute times--in addition to the fact that you are still stuck with CPS schools. Other than bragging rights about still "being in the city", which is a meaningless designation at that point, there is little reason to consider those neighborhoods over inner-ring suburbs like Oak Park, Evanston, Park Ridge, Brookfield, La Grange, etc. Heck, Oak Park is actually CLOSER to the Loop than either the far NW or SW sides.

This is why I edited my above post and added this:

"In any event I don't buy the idea that it is impossible for a middle income family with kids to find an affordable walk able community somewhere in the Chicagoland area, either city or suburbs. As long as you don't have big house/yard and lifestyle expectations it is very doable."

All those suburbs you mentioned are walk able and in some cases affordable areas to live in. I will concede that it makes sense for people looking at outer neighborhoods to also look at those suburbs if city residency doesn't matter and amenities and walkability are important. I do maintain that the idea that nowhere in Chicagoland is affordable for middle class families desiring walkable neighborhoods is complete nonsense, that is a myth perpetuated by people still clinging to unrealistic middle class lifestyle expectations in regards to house/yard sizes, cars and other overly materialistic creature comforts.

That being said those outer city neighborhoods are often affordable and in some cases not as amenity deprived as some people make them out to be. Many of them also have decent or "good" CPS schools, I put good in parenthesis because that is another very subjective label that is very dependent on an individual parents' standards and what they consider to be good enough. My point is that I feel many of the CPS schools in the outer neighborhoods (at least the ones I am familiar with) are good enough that if you are a good parent that is involved with your child's education you will find that many of those students perform well and go on to good colleges. Many of these CPS schools in those areas are at the tipping point where if enough parents sent their kids there they would be unquestionably good schools. Sure there are public schools in parts of the city that are so bad that even stable active middle class and upwards parents wouldn't make a difference but on the other extreme it also become a problem when not enough people are willing to give fairly good schools a chance. It is a two way street, as much blame you can rightly give to the system or whatever ordinary middle class people with suburban/helicopter parents are also partly to blame and unless you have a completely binary black and white view of the world it is a perfectly logical thing to say.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by chicago103

My point is that I feel many of the CPS schools in the outer neighborhoods (at least the ones I am familiar with) are good enough that if you are a good parent that is involved with your child's education you will find that many of those students perform well and go on to good colleges.

Some on the NW side are decent options for K-8 (Oriole Park/Norwood Park come to mind). But high school is always an issue in CPS, unless your kids test in to one of the selective enrollment high schools. And even if your oldest tests in, what about your other kids? And even then, will it be close to where you live? Will ALL of your kids get in to the same school, or will you have kids on opposite side of town where you'll have to coordinate those divergent schedules with hours in traffic?

I watched a few parents deal with these issues and decided it wasn't for me. Some people are willing to do this to stay in a neighborhood that they love. But another issue I had was that the neighborhoods that I did love in the city changed so drastically and had so much resident turnover than I didn't feel part of the community any more... We'd develop a nice community of city-oriented families to socialize with, and then they would leave. The attrition didn't always happen just before Kindergarten... We knew multiple families that "gave it a go" with CPS or an expensive private option and then decided later to ditch. I think it's better in neighborhoods where people own single-family houses instead of living in condos/apartments. They just seem more invested. But we weren't in that $800,000-$1.5 million house crowd, so "our people" left in droves. I can't count the number of "best friends" my children have had to say goodbye to in their young lives. It was insane, and sad to watch.

Now we have the opposite problem in the burbs. It's the people without kids who are moving out in large numbers now that the housing market has recovered a bit--primarily people in their 50s or older who don't want to pay the property taxes any more or who want to downsize. But most of them aren't moving in to the city either.