Brookfield (Cicero, Wheaton, Berwyn: high crime, neighborhoods, buy)

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by agallan

Brookfield walks a fine line between "inner ring" and western suburbs. The alleys remind one of inner ring / city neighborhood which I was not used to coming from Downers Grove. It has just a sliver of "urban suburb" feel probably due to the smaller lot sizes (mostly 50 or 30 foot) and the large numbers of bungalows and other classic home types. Yet, it associates more with its neighbor to the west, La Grange, in terms of social activities/dining/shopping and Brookfield residents even have access to resident services in La Grange such as their park district.

I think Chet brings up a great point about "hopscotching". Many people on this forum have brought up the (relatively minor) demographic changes that have taken place in Brookfield and then extrapolated that the future of Brookfield may look like Cicero, Berwyn, etc. Well, when we decided to buy in Brookfield, we thought about this carefully and felt very comfortable because Brookfield is much more "protected" than those towns. There is the historic and more expensive Riverside to the East. The wealthy and desirable La Grange is to the West. La Grange Park is to the North. The South is quarry and basically La Grange / Countryside. I little bit borders Lyons but it basically the commercial Ogden Ave corridor. We share schools with La Grange Park and Riverside for Elementary as well as La Grange and Riverside for High School. I think it would take a LOT for the town to be brought down thanks to the neighboring geography. Plus honestly its a great place to live where you can get a nice solid house with a lot of character and charm for your money AND send your kids to great schools for the money. And like I mentioned earlier in these posts they are renovating a lot of the housing stock - taking small outdated 2 BR bungalows and adding a second floor and turning them into 4BR, 3 BA essentially new houses. That turns $170k houses into $400-450k houses which would do wonders for the town. The lot sizes aren't big enough to support huge teardown houses like Western Springs etc, but you can fit a compact 3000 sf house and still have a reasonably sized yard.

Just out of curiosity, "protected" from what?

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Brookfield is not really "inner ring" -- the towns of Cicero, Berwyn, and Riverside are ALL EAST OF BROOKFIELD.

I would probably consider the "Inner Ring" to be the suburbs east of 294/290, all the way out to Hillside.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by BRU67

Just out of curiosity, "protected" from what?

The unwashed hoardes of visigoths, of course.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The unwashed hoardes, of course.

That's what I suspected. Hopefully the much wealthier surrounding towns and disapproving stares of Agallan are enough to keep them "safe"!

[agallan]

I'm going to genuinely assume those comments were in jest, which is fine, especially the last one which was funny.

But if you're implying I am a racist or something trying to keep people of any race/ethnicity out of the town I live in regardless of whether they are middle class, upper middle class, etc...not cool and most definitely not true. My prior posts in this thread and particularly in others spell that out pretty clearly. What I care about is the value of my house, the types of people that make up my community, and the quality of the schools I will be sending my kids to. Those factors know no particular race, but for better or worse the home values and quality of schools are influenced by the socioeconomic positions of those who live there. Sorry for wanting to sell my house for more than I bought it for. Shame on you if you were implying more than that.

[Lookout Kid]

You are probably less racist than most people just by choosing modern day Brookfield as a place to live. Even if there aren't many black people in Brookfield itself, you may find yourself shopping at the big box in Broadview, or catching soul food at Priscilla's in Hillside. And of course, you could never live there if you had a major problem with Hispanics.

[royandkass]

Thanks so much for all the responses everybody! Any comments on school district 96 vs 95? From what we've read, they're both good. Also, how much better do you think the resale value would be in Brookfield/Riverside vs Berwyn?

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by agallan

What I care about is the value of my house, the types of people that make up my community, and the quality of the schools I will be sending my kids to. Those factors know no particular race, but for better or worse the home values and quality of schools are influenced by the socioeconomic positions of those who live there. Sorry for wanting to sell my house for more than I bought it for. Shame on you if you were implying more than that.

Well, ok. You're well intentioned as I've seen from your posts, and obviously very smart. You're basically saying here that you don't want certain types of people in your community (such as those in Berwyn, Cicero, etc.) because of the influence they'll have on the schools and ultimately your property value.

That's entirely fine and absolutely your right to take that position. I only needled you a bit because saying things like "protected" might put more of an elitist slant on this than what you intended. Not to lecture you but take it from me, people who are less intelligent and/or not standing in your shoes will misinterpret it. My $.02.

Anyway, I second what Lookout said. It's good you've chosen a somewhat diverse area, and Brookfield has many attributes. Nice alternative to true suburbia. More people around here should take such chances, and I hope you get involved in your community, and stay motivated even if some hopscotching (LOL I like that!) does occur.

[agallan]

Well I guess thanks for taking a lighter stance, but lets be very precise and accurate about what I am saying and not paint with broad strokes. I did not say I don't want people from Berwyn or Cicero in my community. What I am saying is that people have moved INTO Berwyn, Cicero, etc who have changed it in some ways that I don't desire and I don't want it to happen to Brookfield. People say the same exact things on this site nearly every day with much more nefarious implications than what I'm stating, so not sure why I'm catching some of this. I'm not saying all or most people living there are bad/undesirable. Of course they're not, most of them are probably wonderful people. And not all people who move there are bad/undesirable. Of course they're not, most are probably wonderful people. But there is a subset moving in these places more than other suburbs further away from Chicago who move in and are hurting, not helping the towns in terms of schools/community/etc. This is NOT a matter of being white, black, hispanic, etc. Seriously. It isn't all about socioeconomics, but it probably is a better marker than anything else. It doesn't mean that less wealthy people aren't good people or that I wouldn't be friends with them. I don't think the socioeconomic status is the cause as much as the effect of some other factor that makes some of them not the type of neighbors I might want. People who have low household incomes include a variety of people - divorced single parents with kids who can only work lower paying more flexible jobs, very well educated people who chose public service professions (assistant district attorneys make like $40,000 or something like that...), college graduates struggling in the poor economy... OR people who didn't take school seriously and are lazy, people who have been in trouble with the law and can't hold down a job, etc. Just by virtue of having a town where the LOW END of the housing inventory has very low home prices you are going to get some more of those last groups of people. And that worries me with schools/home values.

I may be a doctor but I don't feel like a "doctor" with $300,000 in student debt on a residents salary, and I don't WANT to ever live in an upper class suburb with snobby neighbors. That's just not my style. In 10+ years we may want an "upgrade" to a more uniformly upper middle / upper middle+ suburb like La Grange (for the size of house and amenities not the people), but right now we're loving where we're at in Brookfield. So take it for what it is!

[agallan]

And to answer your question RoyandKass...

Both are wonderful school districts, especially at the elementary school level. I think the Riverside district is still a bit better though. And at the middle school level the Riverside district is better. But again, D96 is still great, and obviously Riverside is significantly more expensive than Brookfield. Both feed into Riverside-Brookfield HS.