How much would this house sell for in Chicago? (Lake Forest: magnet school, university)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by usroute10

In DETROIT,

Garbage pickup is very reliable. Police and fire are underfunded and undermanned, so those services are lacking, in some instances they are lacking a whole lot. Do you get great city services in your Chicago neighborhood? Can you name any in particular.

• When some knucklehead tagged my garage, I called the city and 3 days later the graffiti was gone.
  
• When an abandoned car sat outside my apartment for 5 weeks, I called the city and 2 days later it was gone.
  
• When a neighbor caught someone trying to steal his car, the police were there within 2 minutes and found the perp hiding in some bushes.
  
• When a street light burned out, another neighbor called the alderman's office. It was fixed by the end of the week.
  
• Quite a few streets around here have been resurfaced in the 2.5 years since I've lived in this neighborhood.
  
• The city runs a rather tight ship with regard to rat & pest control and restaurant health inspections.
  
• Though we may complain endlessly about it, public transportation is quite adequate and has notably improved over the last couple years.
  
• Our parks and park district are the envy of many major cities.

Things could always be better, but I'm pretty confident the city services here are far superior to those in Detroit.

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by Drover

• When some knucklehead tagged my garage, I called the city and 3 days later the graffiti was gone.
• When an abandoned car sat outside my apartment for 5 weeks, I called the city and 2 days later it was gone.
• When a neighbor caught someone trying to steal his car, the police were there within 2 minutes and found the perp hiding in some bushes.
• When a street light burned out, another neighbor called the alderman's office. It was fixed by the end of the week.
• Quite a few streets around here have been resurfaced in the 2.5 years since I've lived in this neighborhood.
• The city runs a rather tight ship with regard to rat & pest control and restaurant health inspections.
• Though we may complain endlessly about it, public transportation is quite adequate and has notably improved over the last couple years.
• Our parks and park district are the envy of many major cities.

Things could always be better, but I'm pretty confident the city services here are far superior to those in Detroit.

You can add snow removal to that list as well. With the exception of the boneheaded "experiment" of not running trucks at night to avoid overtime a couple weeks back, the fleet is usually out salting before the first flake even hits the ground. The command center resembles NASA mission control.

We have 311, which is the citys non-emergency complaint line. During heat/cool blasts you can call for wellbeing checks on seniors. You can call if you see grafitti. You can call to report potholes, which the city tracks using GPS. Abandoned vehicles, porch inspections, rodent complaints, restaurant health complaints, dirty vacant lots....you can call regarding all this stuff and the city will typically respond. Its far from perfect, but I doubt any of these things would even be acknowledged in Detroit.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by Drover

• When some knucklehead tagged my garage, I called the city and 3 days later the graffiti was gone.
  
• When an abandoned car sat outside my apartment for 5 weeks, I called the city and 2 days later it was gone.
  
• When a neighbor caught someone trying to steal his car, the police were there within 2 minutes and found the perp hiding in some bushes.
  
• When a street light burned out, another neighbor called the alderman's office. It was fixed by the end of the week.
  
• Quite a few streets around here have been resurfaced in the 2.5 years since I've lived in this neighborhood.
  
• The city runs a rather tight ship with regard to rat & pest control and restaurant health inspections.
  
• Though we may complain endlessly about it, public transportation is quite adequate and has notably improved over the last couple years.
  
• Our parks and park district are the envy of many major cities.

Things could always be better, but I'm pretty confident the city services here are far superior to those in Detroit.

I've had similar experiences to Drover's. Also, at least 4 times a year our Precinct Captain comes by to ask if there is anything we need done and if we are satisfied with city services in general. That is the frequently ignored upside of machine politics.

Some of my experiences include:
- Calling for new trash cans and getting them in 2 days (I have to do this twice a year)
- Free lead testing of our house when our daughter was born (the guy ran through his checklist and then stayed around and tested anything we asked him to - very helpful guy)
- Getting a $125 rain barrel for $25 from the city
- Not only have the cops come within 2 minutes every time I've called them, they also haven't bothered me when I've been lighting fireworks in the summer.
- Rat control guy came to our house and pointed out all the things we needed to do to get rid of rats and baited for free. He did more for free than an Orkin guy did for $100 when we called them in.

[oakparkdude]

Wow, that's pretty good constituent service. When I lived in Chicago I never really had the opportunity/need to take advantage of city services. If only they could fix the schools...

[mendelman]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

If only they could fix the schools...

Indeed. If they fixed the schools, there would be a gigantic tidal wave of people moving back to the City, and the derelict neighborhoods could improve almost over night.

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by mendelman

Indeed. If they fixed the schools, there would be a gigantic tidal wave of people moving back to the City, and the derelict neighborhoods could improve almost over night.

Nah, people would find something else to ***** about (weather, politics, crappy sports teams, etc)

[JohnCU]

Originally Posted by via chicago

Nah, people would find something else to ***** about (weather, politics, crappy sports teams, etc)

Yes they would find other things to **** about....but that wouldn't stop them from returning to the city. Most of that stuff is the same in the 'burbs anyway.

The sorry state of CPS is the biggest roadblock to a true renaissance of the entire city. Like in most other big cities, this won't change until someone has the b*lls to stand up to the teacher's union.

[Anthera]

Originally Posted by usroute10

In DETROIT,

Garbage pickup is very reliable. Police and fire are underfunded and undermanned, so those services are lacking, in some instances they are lacking a whole lot. Do you get great city services in your Chicago neighborhood? Can you name any in particular.

When I lived downtown police and fire were beyond excellent. Garbage and plow service were fabulous. Our Alderman was pretty responsive to local issues. I had three separate bus lines within 4 blocks & a subway line. Street lights were promptly replaced when necessary and the sidewalks and streets were pretty clean even though we were close to Rush Street.

In addition the beach two blocks away was very safe & clean with adequate refreshment stands.

In fact I can say living in my neighborhood(Gold Coast) I never had a single complaint with city services.

[Anthera]

But to compare Detroit vs Chicago real estate. I bought my house in the NS at roughly the same time as a friend bought her in Grosse Pointe Farms. 15 years later, the value of my house has appreciated significantly (at least doubled, maybe tripled, maybe more) and she would be lucky to get what she paid in 1994.

[Humboldt1]

I wish the police would show up in 2 minutes when I call, but then again I live in 60651.