Help With Western Suburbs...Please. (Naperville, Wheaton: house, good schools, living in)

[Violet5434]

I would do St. Charles, but don't put your kids into the St. Charles school district. By high school, a lot of the kids are on drugs (more-so than other schools in the area). I just graduated high school at a nearby school of (Burlington) Central a few years ago. You could live just west of St. Charles and send your kids to (Burlington) Central. It's a great school district academically.

[cutelilsnot]

I vote for St. Charles. I lived in Wheaton, and my daughter attended jr. high and high school there, and despised every minute. Kids with bad attitudes, spoiled, no manners, no respect, etc. Never lived in Naperville, but just spend a summer evening people-watching downtown. Pretty scary - and the property taxes are obscene. I was born in Geneva, which is just south of St. Charles, and I love the area and the ambiance. I know the schools are excellent, and it just doesn't seem as frenzied or attitude-stricken as Wheaton or Naperville.

[Kaybee]

Know that area very well...all three are very nice towns and areas. Bartlett is great too..and growing like mad! They have been redoing the town center....only thing about Barlett is that some pockets of the town (not sure if this is still true, its been a few years) fall into the U46 school district of Elgin...those schools are terrible.

[gne]

Naperville is not the second largest city in Illinois, Aurora is. I've lived there for nearly 30 years - right out of university we bought a starter house. It has a bad reputation because it's an old city (like Chicago - 170 years) among overpriced suburbs. Real estate is a bargain (taxes, though are a little high) and varied. You can buy a McMansion, a rehab, a period revival home among other architectural gems, or a tract house. The architecture (except for the casino) is outstanding. Quality of life is great because if you choose a good neighborhood you can (as we have) live well, save for retirement, invest in a rental house, give your kids a great education among many kinds of people, travel the world (9 countries in Europe and 2 in South America, 1 in Africa), and all on less than $90,000 per year. I stayed home with my kids when they were little and have worked only part time since then.
West Aurora High School (it's very large, but the kids know each other because we don't have the transience of the social climbing suburbs) provided an attentive and broad education for my daughter - she achieved a super SAT score and AP credits with absolutely no stress thanks to the attitude of learning as a way of life not a means to an end among her teachers and friends. There is not the extensive drug problems found among kids at St. Charles and Naperville Schools (I know teachers at those schools) and WAHS students are considerably more tolerant of each other.
I never lock my doors and have had small town experiences in this city. One man lent me his car keys to retrieve an extra set of mine at home after I locked them in my car, have been given rides home (and given rides to others) when I've had car trouble. A woman even provided her credit card to pay for the groceries of an old woman who'd forgotten her check card at the Jewel - the old woman just wrote the check to her instead of the store.
There are well regarded museums (SciTech, Blackberry Farm, and Schingoethe) a university, park district amenities, the most-used library system in the region (although Naperville's is the best - maybe in the US but they have a huge tax base), and golf courses in all directions. We're about to get free WI-FI throughout the city.
People should keep their eye on this community - big things are happening here but it's under the radar.
Jeanne

[giftsgalore60534]

for safety, schools and ease of getting places I would reccomend Wheaton if you can be able to handle the people who tend to look down their noses at others...

[greenlee2]

Naperville is not a south suburb as one of the posts says. Rockford is not a suburb either. The largest cities in Illinois in order are;Chicago, Rockford, Aurora, Naperville, Peoria, Springfield, Joliet, Elgin, & Waukegan.

[bobsmith319]

Hmm, out of those 3, I would pick St. Charles. It has lots of shopping and action going on. I believe they have nice schools, but I would check out realtor.com for that info. Naperville and Wheaton are nice, but the home prices in Wheaton and the taxes there are going up.

[Dustyp]

Have you had any luck or made any decisions? My husband, two children and I will be moving from a great suburb of Houston, Texas to the western suburbs of Chicago as my husband will be working in the town of West Chicago. Our first preference in an area would be kid-friendly with lots of children around, a sense of community, NOT competing with the Jones's but in a nice area with great schools where property values will continue to increase. Most likely in the 350-500k range. I would consider us to be liberal minded, free thinking, "live and let live" kind of people with conservative values looking for a great place to raise a family. Any suggestions yet ? perhaps St. Charles? Batavia? maybe Aurora but probably not Naperville. Thanks so much.

[schmitty9]

Batavia is a great place to raise kids and you can find any kind of house you want there. It is also very similar to both Geneva and St. Charles. The schools throughout these 3 towns are also very comparable. The property prices will be cheaper in Batavia and will definitely increase.

[Frank the Tank]

Naperville, Wheaton and St. Charles have all very similar feels, which makes sense since they're all right next to each other. I don't want to be a Naperville troll, but I've got to defend it here since people on the forum have a tendency to bash it. Let's just say that it's not an accident that the town is always ranked as the one of the best in the nation, not just the Chicago area, in tons of categories, from being a standby in the top 5 best towns overall in Money magazine, having the top rated library system in the country for a town of its size, sporting nationally recognized academic programs in its public schools (they are always ranked right up there with the mega-priced North Shore suburbs in terms of test scores), having a downtown that has been the subject of studies by other towns across the country that want to rebuild their town centers, etc. Rankings certainly aren't everything, but when one town keeps coming up again and again when compared to its peers across the country, it's incredulous to me that some people will automatically scoff at the notion of living in Naperville (i.e. the old refrain that "it's bland and congested blah blah blah"). I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Naperville is better than St. Charles and Wheaton - you can decide what's best for you - but the notion that Naperville is somehow worse than those towns on its face is ridiculous.