Best place (w/ schools) to raise daughter (Chicago, Naperville: low crime, how much)

[Poincare]

Hello,

We are moving to Chicago area from the Western US this fall. Our daughter will be in 9th grade (she is Asian-American) and we are looking for the best place, including good schools, to buy or rent. My wife will be working in the downtown area but I will be in the suburbs. So, hopefully something near a subway or regional rail/bus connection would be best.

I would like to know opinions on the best place to live and thoughts on public schools that have high ACT/PSAE scores and schools were our daughter would not experience gangster or ghetto-related problems typical and common to in Chicago schools (we would like to avoid it).

Some areas that we have preliminarily decided upon are:

Riverside, Orland Park, Hinsdale, Naperville, Elmhurst, Grayslake, and Lincolnshire.

Any thoughts please?

[Drover]

You need to be a lot more specific about where in the suburbs you will be working. The Chicago area is over 100 miles from end to end, so we'd hate to recommend Tinley Park only to find out you'll be working in Gurnee. As it is, the area you've selected is about 60 miles across. You need to seriously narrow down your options if you don't want to end up with a soul-crushing commute to wherever you're working.

[Poincare]

Originally Posted by Drover

You need to be a lot more specific about where in the suburbs you will be working. The Chicago area is over 100 miles from end to end, so we'd hate to recommend Tinley Park only to find out you'll be working in Gurnee. As it is, the area you've selected is about 60 miles across. You need to seriously narrow down your options if you don't want to end up with a soul-crushing commute to wherever you're working.

This doesn't really help. I'm looking for information on the best place to raise the family. To answer your question, I will be working in the Northern area. Again, looking for info about safe areas with low crime, schools w/ high ACT/PSAE scores, and access to transportation (rail/subway/etc).

Anyone have any actual information they find meaningful instead of a cartographic critique?

[Drover]

Wow, let's see if you can be any more of a jackass to someone who is actually trying to help you and familiarize you with what you could be up against.

There are over 300 suburbs in the Chicago area and about 200 school districts. There's no way to meaningfully answer your question if you're not going to help us narrow down your search area. But since "cartographic" details aren't important to you, I highly suggest Bourbonnais. I hope the 2.5 hour commute each way to the Northern suburbs doesn't drive you too crazy.

[chitown85]

The "northern" area is enormous. It ranges from inner suburbs such as Skokie and Evanston all the way north to the Wisconsin border and west approx. 60 miles.

Lincolnshire is a north/northwest suburb that is sandwiched between two METRA rail stations that take you into the city. Lincolnshire has a high school called Stevenson, which has a substantial Asian community.

Grayslake is another "northern" community, but is about 30 minutes farther north than Lincolnshire.

Riverside and Orland Park are both Southwest burbs. I know Riverside is quite wealthy, but not sure about schools and I'm not too familiar with Orland Park.

Hinsdale and Naperville are west burbs in DuPage County. The train ride is about 45 minutes or so into the city via METRA. Naperville and Hinsdale both have good schools. Naperville has a lot of people from other regions of the US due to it being a big business center.

Your commute from the SW or W burbs will be long depending on where you work in the "northern area."

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Poincare

This doesn't really help. I'm looking for information on the best place to raise the family. To answer your question, I will be working in the Northern area. Again, looking for info about safe areas with low crime, schools w/ high ACT/PSAE scores, and access to transportation (rail/subway/etc).

Anyone have any actual information they find meaningful instead of a cartographic critique?

The "cartographic critique" is an attempt to prevent you from having a 2 hour commute, one way. If you don't mind spending half your work day driving, by all means disregard helpful advice about length of commutes. Try northwest Indiana. Low cost of living, good schools, low crime. Oh, its only about a 90 minute commute to the near north suburbs. Its probably 2 hours plus to the far northwest suburbs. But clearly that kind of information isn't important to you.

[ajolotl]

I have a wealth of info but don't share it with ingrate jackasses.

[middle-aged mom]

There are many good schools in the Northern suburbs, New Trier, Glenbrook North, Deerfield, Stevenson, to name a few. NW, you will find FREMD and Barrington High School and others.

Most suburbs feed into multiple schools districts and so, it's important to know schools boundaries.

Objective information can be found within this link:

Interactive Illinois Report Card

So much is determined by how much you can comfortably afford to pay for housing ( including the property taxes which can be enormous compared to most Western areas of the U.S. and how much of a commute you are willing to make.

The southern and western suburbs you mention, can indeed create a multi hour commute, each way, to/from the Northern suburbs.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by Poincare

This doesn't really help. I'm looking for information on the best place to raise the family. To answer your question, I will be working in the Northern area. Again, looking for info about safe areas with low crime, schools w/ high ACT/PSAE scores, and access to transportation (rail/subway/etc).

Anyone have any actual information they find meaningful instead of a cartographic critique?

There are only like 10 million people in the "northern area" of Illinois and as mentioned by others hundreds of towns and suburbs.

Ask your type of question to people in Southern California or the East Coast and you will get the same types of responses. In fact you would be lucky if anyone responds to you at all.

[Lookout Kid]

I hear Carbondale is good for families.