NW vs. W suburbs for job in Elk Grove (Chicago: sales, houses)

[kingofhearts]

First off, thanks Kirsten for that detailed and very helpful post. I am truly grateful for you the time you took to put it together.

I confess I agree with nanannie. There are good and bad people in every town. However, Western Springs definitely sounds like a place I should consider. Mapquest says its 18 miles / 25 mins from Elk Grove. The fact that there are new developments instead of just tear downs is great.

This discussion has been wonderful. A few more questions to either of you:

1. Hinsdale Central is a great high school, but I hear Hinsdale South is not up to the same caliber. True?

2. How is the school system for Oak Brook?

3. What is the fastest way to downtown from Barrington?

4. Kirsten, where do you get your school rankings from?

Thanks again.

[nanannie]

We take 90 and the Kennedy takes us down-35-40 minutes.Rush hour is a whole 'nother story--pack a lunch

[ahava]

Originally Posted by kingofhearts

First off, thanks Kirsten for that detailed and very helpful post. I am truly grateful for you the time you took to put it together.

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful.

Originally Posted by kingofhearts

1. Hinsdale Central is a great high school, but I hear Hinsdale South is not up to the same caliber. True?

2. How is the school system for Oak Brook?

3. What is the fastest way to downtown from Barrington?

4. Kirsten, where do you get your school rankings from?

Thanks again.

1) That is true. Hinsdale South is ranked 102nd. It's smaller and serves the less affluent areas around Hinsdale, mainly Darien and Willowbrook.

2) Oak Brook has an excellent school system. They have one school district with an elementary school and a middle school, which are ranked 46th and 14th, respectively. The district feeds to Hinsdale Central.

4) The school where I teach maintains a database of school statistics. I'm a member of the task force in charge of it. We noticed that when most newspapers and websites rank schools, they don't use test scores from every subject or every grade. We use all available scores, so our rankings look at the whole picture of a school. Also, some rankings are done by total or composite student score, which doesn't tell as much about how good a school is as ranking by percent of students meeting/exceeding state standards does. We rank schools by the average of students meeting/exceeding standards on all tests. And we get our data directly from the ISBE school report card website (webprod.isbe.net/ereportcard/publicsite/getSearchCriteria.aspx).

Also, Mapquest is infamous for underestimating travel times in Chicago, but my in-laws live in Elk Grove near I-290 & Biesterfield Rd and on weekdays it's a 35 minute trip for us taking Rt 83.

To nanannie: By major highways I meant interstates - roads without traffic lights. Plus, Lake Barrington and North Barrington are more than 5 minutes to I-90.

[hgclyde]

When I visited Chicago last year, I visited an friend of mine. He lives in Elk Grove Village. Its very nice town. Home to Busse Woods Forest Preserve; a huge park (Chicago area have many of these preserves; they are run by the counties that the where parks located. Plus many have lakes, or rivers or streams.) Good schools in the area. Elk Grove Village was the post First World War II community,(This is Chicago's answer to Levittown[s](New York and PA.) Lakewood,Ca (Los Angeles) and Daly City,CA (San Francisco.) Elk Grove Village also was the headquarters for United Airlines(United Moved back to Chicago last year some operations remain) The drawback is being in the shadow of O'Hare International Airport; As much of the West, Northwest and Northern Suburbs that are close to O'Hare.

Also Elk Grove Village has mostly older homes; The homes were built between the mid 1950's and early 1990's. Because of its layout there is no Downtown area (maybe that will change as many suburbs move to create downtowns; but I don't that will happen but who knows that's my speculation.)

And this, Elk Grove Village is in two counties Cook and Du Page. Taxes are Cheaper in Du Page than in Cook Counties. Du Page County is on the far south side of Elk Grove Village below Devon Ave. Most residents live in Cook County above Devon Ave.

Elk Grove Village is served by Northwest Tollway (I-90),The Eisenhower Expressway(I-290/Rt 53), and Near the Tri-Sate Tollway (I-294) in Rosemont and North-South Tollway (I-355) in nearby Itasca. I hope this helps.

[nanannie]

DuPage is cheaper then Cook taxes??? Elk Grove is the place of employment for the OP,not a home buyng consideration.

[ahava]

Originally Posted by nanannie

DuPage is cheaper then Cook taxes???

Yeah, since when? The taxes are another reason I live in Western Springs instead of Hinsdale. Cook County taxes have gone down over 40% in the last decade.

[mdz]

Kristen--where did you get that data on the cook county property taxes?
taxes on my house have gone up 60% in last 6 years

[ahava]

Originally Posted by mdz

Kristen--where did you get that data on the cook county property taxes?
taxes on my house have gone up 60% in last 6 years

Here: Cook County Information Center - Media Center (broken link). I came across it during my Google search for a list of property tax rate by town, like there is for DuPage County. I haven't yet found one.

[mdz]

guess we're paying for the schools then...

[jrsygrl]

I just wanted to chime in quickly if I may-

I moved here a month ago with my family (husband and 2 children, elementary school age). We moved to the Tower Lakes section of Barrington (off of Kelsey and Rt. 59) from New Jersey. We did look all over the area (Arlington Heights, Hawthorn Woods, Long Grove), but when push came to shove we just kept coming back to the Barrington area. Now that we have been here, I wouldn't change anything for the world-I feel like we live in a slice of heaven-it's calm and green with rolling hills. The schools are excellent(my kids go to North Barrington Elem) and our neighbors have been wonderful. If I were to do it all over again, I wouldn't look anywhere but the Barrington area, but that is just my opinion. Yes, the traffic is tough, but after a month of trying to get into the city and surrounding area (even on weekends), I'm not sure there is a place in Chicagoland where the traffic is not difficult. I hope this helps a bit-I understand your struggle, it was a tough decision for us, but now that we have been here, we definitely made the right decision.

Best of luck to you in your move-