Moving to Freeport (Chicago, Rockford, Peoria: apartment, crime, houses)

[Nickieree]

We are in the process of relocating to freeport. Can any body give me some insight as to where the best area in town to move to is? Best schools?, We are especailly interested in the child cares and dance studios.

[justsaymint]

The best advice I can give you is to turn around and go back, Freeport is terrible... the police are corrupt, there are absolutley no jobs and there is nothing to do there but go to Wal-Mart.

[Drover]

If I had to live near Freeport, the first place I'd look is Monroe WI.

[sbn2008]

I live in Freeport right now. My apartment is near Highland Community College, which has been really nice for my husband and I, but the rest of the city is pretty ghetto. As far as schools, there is one public high school, junior high, and middle school. Of the 4 elementary schools, I would look into Lincoln-Douglas or Empire. Not sure how old your kids are though.

As someone else mentioned, there are no jobs here really. Therefore, there are probably a lot of babysitters, so make sure you find one who is licensed, and don't be afraid to ask questions! I'm not sure if there are any dance studios here anymore...I used to do that when I was younger. I know there is a place in Pecatonica for sure.

[mbrown0312]

I agree. My husband is having a hard time finding a job here and the economy is really low here. Its hard to get a job even at Wal-mart. I would suggest moving to Rockford. They have better job opportunities and better school districts. However, if you have your heart set on moving here. Stay where Cubs foods area is and Wal-mart. If you start seeing streets like Walnut or Chicago or S. State or anything after Locust isn't the safest place to live or work. Now downtown is safe overall, but stay on Main st. or Stephenson

[Nickieree]

Thanks for the info. We will keep this all in mind. We do not have our hearst set on Freeport. It is just that when looking for a house, Freeprot seems to have the "most house for our money". My husband already has a good job that is why we are moving. His territory is mostly all of northern Il, so we have a big area to look. Our kids are 11 months- 11yrs old. The oldest 2 are very much into their dance. The reason I asked about child care is because I am a licensed child development home owner/operator here in Ia and I want to contiue in early childhood education when we move. Are there a lot of unlicensed providers out there? Given this info does anybody have suggestions as where we should looking?

[Drover]

Rockford has some pretty decent suburbs such as Machesney Park, Rockton, Roscoe, Cherry Valley, and Belvidere. I still suspect that Monroe might be the best place to get the most house for the money without giving up anything in terms of the quality of the town like you would in Freeport. There's a reason why houses in Freeport are cheap.

[kriskaden]

Galesburg, Illinois is a nice city to live in. It's exactly 45 miles from the quad cities and 45 miles from Peoria, IL on I-74. We listed our home on here in the classifieds forum. Also, there are some good dance studios in the area and gymnastics studios.

[shanshan]

Originally Posted by Nickieree

We are in the process of relocating to freeport. Can any body give me some insight as to where the best area in town to move to is? Best schools?, We are especailly interested in the child cares and dance studios.

For the past couple years I've lived in Minneapolis Mn but will soon be moving back closer to home to finish my degree in Chicago. I was born and raised in Freeport and have to say that from personal experience, at one point in time, like most of smaller cities it was thriving. Now due to the many job cut backs in factories like Kelly Springfield, Newell, and Micro Switch this small town has stopped growing. I've got family that has worked for all three companies and lost work due to these businesses taking there work over seas to people that will work for less. It is very hard for some one to find a job there but with that said it's not a bad city at all. Freeport has it's bad parts of town like any where else but also has a good community that really tries to make Freeport a nice living environment for it's children and families. It's also not a bad commute to Rockford which would be a better place to look for a job.

I also have to say that if I had my way about it I'd buy a house there in a minute. You can purchase a beautiful home for almost under 100,000 and that's in a nice neighborhood. They also have a dance studio downtown, and plenty of activities for kids. Probably the one thing that I would question about living there with kids would be the public schools. I had such a hard time in the public schools as a child and would strongly suggest looking into private schools.

P.S. You should always in my opinion feel safe in this city, I do.

[LMW]

Property taxes are very, very high. And the crime there is getting much worse, compared to 15 years ago.