long island, ny vs. chicago suburbs (Naperville, Skokie: fit in, insurance, condos)

[mike3512]

i posted before, but I think it was a bit too lengthy, so no one replied
Really all I'd like to know is how long island, ny is similar in comparison to the chicago burbs, in terms of the people, crowdedness, stores, businesses, house prices, or anything else. basically, would someone from longi lsland fit in the chicago burbs?

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by mike3512

i posted before, but I think it was a bit too lengthy, so no one replied
Really all I'd like to know is how long island, ny is similar in comparison to the chicago burbs, in terms of the people, crowdedness, stores, businesses, house prices, or anything else. basically, would someone from longi lsland fit in the chicago burbs?

Im not familiar with Long Island, so I cant really comment. Id venture to guess that only our inner-ring burbs (ie Oak Park) would be similar to what you find on Long Island.

[Chicago60614]

I just drove the whole length of Long Island...

The Chicago suburbs are growing at a much faster clip than Long Island, and seem to be much newer, sprawling. Long Island is more a huge group of communities that all grew up independant of each other and are running into each other, but have forests inbetween, open areas, fields. Sometimes you can't really tell that there are 3 million people in Suffolk or Nassau counties.... It just seems more "townish", and established. It was a little less wealthy than I was expecting, but I certainly didn't explore everything...I know there's a lot of wealth there.

The Chicago suburbs are a little newer, much larger than Long Island (6 million people covering thousands of square miles), and seem to be less confined and isolated compared to Long Island. Not that that's a bad thing at all, just the geography, when you're on Long Island, you're ON Long Island. It's very much a PLACE that's not anywhere else.

When you're in the Chicago burbs you could be anywhere, and all you have to do is drive away in any direction (except downtown I guess), and you're just going to end up with hundreds or even thousands of miles of fields and land...

The Chicago burbs seem to grow as a unit more, especially west and south. They just feed off each other, and keep marching away from the City. They're both nice places though, but the Chicago burbs just seem to be more sprawling as far as the eye can see; as opposed to Long Island, which seemed a little more "rural" at times - even though it wasn't. Obviously I'm talking about Long Island once you get away from New York city, and are a good 30-40 miles out on the island. If you're closer to New York you're just going to get a non-stop, older, established mass of urbanity and buildings.

[Chicago60614]

What are you looking for in the Chicago burbs? You can literally drive 100 miles and still just be in a massive urban area if you go from the north burbs around to Indiana.

The different areas kinda mimic the city itself. The north suburbs are probably more like Long Island, older, lots of wooded areas, rich, more "communities". The northwest and west suburbs are kinda the mega-burbs of mile after mile of sprawling malls, condos, houses, freeways, etc. It's kinda the middle class or upper middle class area of a few million people who have nice jobs, a decent house and multiple cars, etc.

The southwest burbs are growing the fastest, as in tens of thousands of people every year. They're more starter houses, brand new areas, cheaper housing, but still a decent area. The south burbs are a little more depressed in areas, are growing - but not as fast. Until you get really south I guess, like south of I-80 a few miles. Then they're just like the southwest burbs....

[NYrules]

Long Island and Chicago's burbs are VERY similar in many ways, esp. traffic. While NY has much more traffic, it has wider roads (for instance Sunrise Highway, Belt Parkway, etc.) and there are more of them. The state of IL operates in a much different manner here. IL's philosophy; wait till the roads are completely impassible, build buildings along both sides of the roads right up against the roads, put in utility poles on both sides of the roads, sidewalks, then try to figure out how to widen the roads instead of what the rest of the country does... Plan ahead instead of for today. Most of the roads around the burbs of Chicago are either two lane or at most 4, with the exception of the far west burbs who are fortunate enough to get a whopping 6 lane roadway. Traffic creeps along down the beaten roads here (loaded with potholes) and stop lights line all the streets of which none of them are timed worth a darn. To be honest that is my biggest complaint about this area; the fact that the traffic here is so bad and it doesn't have to be. Just poor planning and politicians stealing all the $$$, thats about all. Other than for the poor roads and lack of them, homes are built almost identical, forests DO separate many of the towns of which here are called "forest preserves" and burbs here are EXTREMELY segregated. Towns on the south side that were once all white communities have in many cases changed to nearly being all black in a matter of 10 years. Sad but true, apparently here people cannot learn to get along with eachother and stay put causing the most incredible white flight in the country producing the world's most segregated city (Chicago). Prices here are much lower than on LI with not only homes, but taxes, food, cars, gas, insurance for cars, you name it, it is usually 75% of whatever the cost for the good or service is out on the island. Looks wise, both look almost identical flat and lots of trees.

[mike3512]

that sounds a heck of a lot like long island. It is very segregated, for the most part. but the one thing about long island that bothers me so much is the crowdedness. will i be in constant crowds in the chicago suburbs? i understand it may be crowded somewhat, but compared to LONG ISLAND, which is totally population dense, is it crowded? and my main concern is can someone from long island fit in well to the chicago burb lifestyle?

[NYrules]

Originally Posted by mike3512

that sounds a heck of a lot like long island. It is very segregated, for the most part. but the one thing about long island that bothers me so much is the crowdedness. will i be in constant crowds in the chicago suburbs? i understand it may be crowded somewhat, but compared to LONG ISLAND, which is totally population dense, is it crowded? and my main concern is can someone from long island fit in well to the chicago burb lifestyle?

LOL! You being from there will fit right in. Burbs to compare... Skokie, Morton Grove, Niles, Deerfield, IL = Rockville Centre, Amityville, W. Babylon, NY. Oak Park, Berwyn, Lyons, IL areas = Brooklyn. Oak Lawn, Worth, Palos Heights, IL = Lynbrook or Rockville Centre, NY (nearly identical for Oak Lawn to Lynbrook when comparing traffic and crowds esp near the mall) (Green Acres Mall = Chicago Ridge Mall) Oak Brook area = Brookville, Syossett or areas very upscale. Naperville = more of the newer sprawling areas in Jersey or way up north, but is very nice, same with Orland Park and Frankfort which is probably more like areas along I-80 in Jersey where everything is all new and booming and spread out.