At what point does it start to get "country"? (Chicago: house, job market)

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by 3divina

Thanks thread cop.

You are quite welcome. I offer no assistance to you in the future.

[pvande55]

Originally Posted by TempesT68

The unofficial chicagoland rules for when you hit the boonies is anything south of 80 and anything west of 47. North is debatable as it's fairly populated all the way into wisconsin.

Except for a few small farms and forest preserves it is continually urbanized to Milwaukee. What is controversial is the demarcation between the Chicago and Milwaukee metro areas. My vote is for Kenosha.

[urza216]

Far south suburbs have cornfields. This doesn't automatically make it "country" or not a suburb. Hell, even Flossmoor has cornfields on Vollmer road.

[Chicagoland60426]

Technically you start to hit semi boonish when you reach the south edge of Cook County. If you ever looked at a map of Cook County on C-D, you notice all the undeveloped patches of brown spots in the southern area. This area is quite vulnerable to Tornadoes.

A good way to know when you have left the Chicago suburbs if the town does not have a Metra station or at least near a city that has one. In the west suburbs, Aurora is the last stop. I head that way several times and it gets rural almost instantly west of Aurora. Heading south or southwest, University Park or Joliet are the last stops. I'm not sure about the northern area. I think Waukegan or Kenosha are the last Metra stops.

[deechee ...]

Originally Posted by Avengerfire

This thread touches on the subject:

//www.city-data.com/forum/chica...t-hitting.html

Are you briving linicx so you can pretend to be moderator? There was a huge debate about the two of you over on [domain blocked due to spam]. There was a mod from the gamer's section that was demoted for that very reason. It was 2goldens. SuncoastGuy was the one that turned her in. SCG also got into it with Drover. The debate got very nasty after that.

[CindyStrahota]

Ditto Tempest8. The "Chicagoland" boundaries can be defined as within this area; North of 80 and East of 47 and North to Wisconsin.
Another idea---locate the furthest stop on all the Metra lines that go into Chicago. Connect the "dots". Now you have basically outlined the "suburban" Chicago area and anything outside of that is relatively rural.

[3divina]

How about, if it has mobile homes it's not considered "Chicagoland".

[mh9]

Sorry to bust your bubble, but the near suburbs are rife with mobile homes, even in some of the higher-income areas.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by 3divina

In the Chicago suburbs. And how far out do "Chicago suburbs" go? A couple of times I've typed in a suburb or two into Google Maps and would think, "this is a suburb of Chicago?" when the map came up. Two examples are Elburn and St. Charles. Until you zoom out considerably on Google Maps, they look like they're in the middle of nowhere. And I've looked at pictures of Elburn, some parts look more rural than suburban. At what point is an area not a suburb of Chicago but a town in Illinois?

I don't get why St. Charles as a suburb seems so implausible. There is contiguous development from Chicago all the way out to the Fox Valley, and now beyond -- such as to Elburn. When my family moved to STC in 1980 it was already considered a suburb back then. It's certainly more so now. Me personally, I draw the line at Route 47. But I doubt it will be long before the line will have to be moved again. It wasn't that long ago that Randall Road was what Route 47 is now -- a relatively quick way to get from one end of the Fox Valley area to the other. Nowadays you can jog on many stretches of Randall almost as fast as you can drive, especially on Saturdays.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by 3divina

How about, if it has mobile homes it's not considered "Chicagoland".

Hegewisch (a Chicago neighborhood) had mobile homes until two years ago. So I don't think that criteria is gonna work.