Best suburb for young professionals?

[nikitakolata]

Like damba said, public transit is only going to be an option if you can walk to your job from the station in Waukegan or if your employer offers a shuttle. If that is an option then I'm all about taking the train as it is much less stressful and can even be peaceful.

Regardless of whether your can realistically use transit I would still look for a place to live near either the Main Street or Davis Street train stations. The area around Davis Street is there main downtown, but Evanston has three downtown areas: Main, Davis and Central. I personally like the Davis Street area the best, followed by Main Street and then Central had the least going on.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by mlb1111

Wow, thank you all. So we are looking more into Evanston. It’s seems to be the only place with many options for housing too. Online there isn’t much north of Evanston that is affordable. It’s about a 40 min commute to our work in Waukegan. What are we looking like traffic wise? Is this 40 min commute going to suck? Being from Florida we aren’t used to long commutes. My logic is that people will be going the opposite way from us in the morning and at night on the highway, correct?

Also, should we get a car or do public transit?

Lastly, best parts of Evanston? Don’t want to be with a lot of students but in a nicer area.

Thank you all for all the advice, you have no idea how helpful it’s been.

You need to understand that the layout of Chicago is pretty unique. The various suburbs are all connected with some combination of expressways, surface streets, and commuter rail, BUT there are also jobs THROUGHOUT the region -- that means that there is significant traffic headed pretty much EVERYWHERE during peak rush hour and given that Waukegan is 25-30 miles from Evanston you will be facing a 50+ minute driving commute most days / evenings. The "commuter rail" that links Evanston to Waukegan almost certainly will take LONGER than that because of the lack of express service -- the pattern for commuter rail is to bring from the 'burbs into Chicago's Loop during the AM and then back out in the PM, expresses are set up for that... You almost certainly need a car unless you are 100% sure that there is dedicated commuter route directly to your employer.

Given that I do think that Evanston is worth considering. It really has very few areas that are somewhat less desirable but it is NOT because of "students" -- Northwestern has a very affluent and mostly motivated student base, it probably makes sense to consider that the few dozen restaurants in town are almost all clustered within a few blocks of each of each and that cluster about .75-1.5 miles SW of the campus...

If you are hoping to have a shorter commute to Waukegan your best bet is probably trying to find rentals near the center of Libertyville. The town has a number of spots to hang out which include some brew pubs and spots that do have live music and are a draw for the Lake Co area...

[damba]

Chet,
I agree with you about the logistics of travel from Evanston to Waukegan. It can be a trudge. But if the OP is with his SO, maybe not as bad(?)

Frankly though, you don’t know Libertyville that well. The restaurant and bar scene along Milwaukee Ave skews a lot older than twenty-somethings who are recent college grads.

[It'sAutomatic]

That's a really tough area to find something for young professionals. It's either sleepy family suburbs (some of them are among the richest in the country) or semi run-down towns filled with Latino immigrants. Evanston maybe, but it's far from Waukegan. The closest areas with decent downtowns are Libertyville and Fox Lake, though Fox Lake is further from Chicago. Your options if you're OK with something "funky" are Highwood and Waukegan itself.

[damba]

I would argue for many Highwood and Waukegan are no go for similar (separate though) reasons.