Academic family with new job at Northwestern (Chicago, Evanston: real estate, condo)

[zinaida]

Hello. I have been following the Chicago suburbs threads for some time.
I just received a faculty position at Northwestern University, and my husband (a computer programmer) and I are moving to the Chicago area this summer/fall. We have a toddler-aged children and want to buy a house in an area with the following characteristics:

1. good public schools
2. adequate public transportation to the Northwestern University campus
3. walkable and safe (lots of trails and sidewalks OR a pleasant shopping district)
4. a place where we could find a house with 3/4 bedrooms and a yard in the range of 400-500K.
5. a cultural climate of tolerance and diversity

If anyone has any suggestions, we'd be most grateful.

Thank you.

[chet everett]

Evanston has mostly pricey real estate, and some foolishly misguided policies at the High School, but other than that it is probably a good fit. Surrounding areas won't be signficantly more tolerant or diverse...

[Philbert]

A good number of Northwestern faculty and staff choose to live in Evanston, including those with children, which I think speaks to the quality of the schools. However, Evanston has a fairly wide socio-economic distribution, and if you look at the state report cards for the schools, you will see wide achievement gaps for low-income students. At the elementary school level, this has a strong impact on some schools, less on others, based on neighborhood. These feed three middle schools, 2 of which are affected much less than the third. And there is one high school - which, as Chet alludes to above, has been the subject of some controversey of late. There is a thread here discussing it, but as I noted there, the local paper seems to have painted the issue in most controversial light as possible.

Evanston has a great walkable downtown (centered around the Davis train stop), along with two additional shopping districts around the Central and Main street stops. Davis and Main have both Metra and 'L' trains within a block of each other, while at Central they are separated by approximately 3/4 mile.

My wife works for NU, we have a 1yr old, and currently live in a condo in the main downtown area. We have been looking for a house similar to what you describe. Unfortunately, that criteria does not comprise the bulk of the available housing stock, though nice houses in good neighborhoods do become available from time to time in that range.

[suburban_boy]

UMMM...How bout Evanston?

If you think the houses in Evanston are too much than consider moving next door to Skokie, niles or lincolnwood. Its hard to go wrong in that area.

[cubssoxfan]

The older sections of Glenview with smaller homes and price tags.