Quote:
Originally Posted by randomguymike
I grew up in Birmingham, lived in Birmingham for a few years out of college and now am in Ann Arbor. Any social gathering requires me driving 45 minutes up to Ferndale/Royal Oak or over to Detroit. This means no drinking and early departures to be the drunk hour home.
In Chicago, I'm hoping public transportation can solve some of that. I can go out, take a taxi or the l home if I've had a few drinkis, and life is good.
The more I think about my employment prospects here, over the last few days though, should anything happen, the less confortable I feel staying.
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I can relate somewhat because I teach at U of M but live at 14 Mile and Woodward. We looked into Ann Arbor but decided that Oakland County is better for this stage of our lives. I drove 45-60 minutes one-way from SF to Palo Alto, so Oakland County to Ann Arbor is no big deal. For work, I can deal with a commute, but it's different when you're doing it for social reasons, as you know intimately. From Ann Arbor, we couldn't just decide to go to Somerset or the zoo on a whimsy, especially with kids in tow.
My wife grew up in Birmingham and her parents still live in the same house (her mom taught for over 40 years in the district so she might have taught you!). Our daycare is here, friends, walks during the winter at Somerset, Cranbrook, restaurants, zoo, etc. - none easily replaceable in Washtenaw County. If Oakland County was boring, sprawling suburbia like Utica and Sterling Heights, we probably would have moved to Ann Arbor.
The Woodward area is a great place to live and raise a family - and we've lived most of our adult lives on the two coasts (Boston, Philly, DC, LA, SF). Living in the city of Chicago is great in your twenties. Once you hit your thirties, all your friends start fanning out and public transit becomes less viable except for commutes. You can stick with your neighborhood pub, but you start realizing that everyone else there is 10 years younger than you.
Good luck where ever you land. You might end up like my wife and come back after swearing to never return, which seems to be a goal possessed by all the Birmingham kids I meet.
