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Sorry for all the questions, I'm sure there will be more. We were leaning toward Naperville, but the cost of living there is pretty high for us. We are thinking about Aurora where the cost is lower, but they share the school's with Naperville, even though it is district 204 and not 203. I looked up all the schools and can anybody tell me what the deal is with Longwood school, it seems to have very low scores. Are there any parts of Aurora we should avoid or avoid it all together? I wanted to know what the cost of home owners insurance would be. Please let me know the cost, size of your home and how much land. We would be buying a condo and we have up to 225K to spend.
Aurora is a very good alternative to Naperville....I've lived here 2 years and love it. Used to live further east in suburbs like Lisle and Lombard.....Aurora has some bad areas but they are all very close in to the center of the city - down near the river. The far ends of town, both east and west are beautiful. All newer homes or at least under 15 years old typically. I have a Townhouse style condo (12 years old) with attached garage on small pond (2 story with 2 .5 baths) sells for about $185000, with 120 amonth assoc. just to give you an idea. Insurance is about $250 a year. As you know condos and townhomes have small yards or no yards at all. Very nice subdivisions to look at include OAKHURST on the east side and others equally nice on the far west side around Orchard Rd. area. Town has 3 library branches, a couple of large US postal outlets, downtown casino along the river and a large regional shopping mall on east end
(Fox Valley Mall)....quite large hispanic population which is centered primarily in center of city more toward downtown, but also growing in size in more outlying sections of town. Having lived all over chicago suburbs, I am pleased with Aurora in many ways.
Aurora is notorious for crime and gangs. Id steer clear of it. Naperville is a FAR superior town, but youll pay for it. The downtown area of Aurora, with the exception of the riverboat, is nothing but junk and Hispanic stores (if you like that sort of thing). The school system is poor and alot of the town is made up of illegals. I avoid that town at all costs. But as Brucerby states, there are some nice areas that are cheaper than Naperville. Your best bet is to find one of those neighborhoods and make sure that if you have children that they will attend Naperville school districts.
Sorry for all the questions, I'm sure there will be more. We were leaning toward Naperville, but the cost of living there is pretty high for us. We are thinking about Aurora where the cost is lower, but they share the school's with Naperville, even though it is district 204 and not 203. I looked up all the schools and can anybody tell me what the deal is with Longwood school, it seems to have very low scores. Are there any parts of Aurora we should avoid or avoid it all together? I wanted to know what the cost of home owners insurance would be. Please let me know the cost, size of your home and how much land. We would be buying a condo and we have up to 225K to spend.
Longwood is in Naperville, IL not Aurora, IL
I live in Oakhurst. My daughter attends Waubonsie Valley High School. Here is my opinion about District 204. I do think it is a good school district. The area that feeds into Waubonsie Valley is mixed economically as well as ethnically. The the majority of people who live in the Longwood area live in apartments leaving a transient community and alot of kids are transferring from other districts that did not leave them prepared, and as a result, test scores drop. You will notice this around several school in Longwood and some parts of Aurora (Georgetown Elementary School, Gombert, and McCarty) Alot of people like to scapegoat and blame the minorities and Longwood has a high %age of minority students. They are working on this.
Let me tell you this: there is an attitude among people from Naperville (especially from the Neuqua Valley community) that Aurora is more inferior (econmically) to them and this also spills over into the schools. This has been a heated debate ever since the boundary issues and the 3rd high school. The parents of south naperville were all in upheaval over the possibility of sending their kids to Waubonsie Valley.
There is an attitude that WV is bad and NV is better. Of course it may be because the kids from Neuqua Valley and predominatly white and upper class. They could afford to take advantage of services and other things. Because Waubonsie is more diverse, that it is bad and they wouldn't want their kids to attend the school. They have their share of rich kids, middle class kids and poor kids at WV. I have been told by many parents that they would want their kids at WV over NV because of different types of people there. The major thing I don't like about 204 is that there are too many students and individual attention is not given.
If I were you, I would look into the following townhome communities: Reflections on Liberty Street, Madison Park and there are other townhome communities close to New York and Eola and Liberty and Eola. These subdivisions feed into District 204
Steve-O seems to be under the assumption that Mexicans are bad and they are all illegal (he said this in a previous post about Joliet). I like the diversity that Aurora brings. We are a Mexican family, so we go the ethnic stores and bakeries.
Jenrik, thats another stupid generalization aimed at me. Never did I say it was BAD, I just stated that its prevalent. Are you gonna dispute that? If you do, youre just as dumb as the person who bashed me on the Joliet thread. Downtown Aurora has LOTS of Hispanic stores, and like I stated, its the truth. And also, like I stated, I pointed that out for the author in case he liked that kind of thing. Do I like it? Heck yes, theres nothing better than hitting up a authentic Mexican restaurant and getting some REAL tacos. But would I want to move to a town where Im constantly subjected to it? Maybe. Thats just my opinion. I have mine and you have yours, right? Right. So, lets keep it at that and please dont point the finger at me and generalize me, because youre wrong. I stated the facts for the author in hopes that he would understand, I find no fault in that.
And please point out to me where I say theyre "bad" and "all illegal". I state that its prevalent and in the majority, thats all.
Thats just a stupid thing to say about me! Whos "bad" now?
Having grown up in Aurora before Fox Valley mall was even built, I can tell you that Aurora, like most fairly large communities has its rough areas. As a realtor, I would never direct a client to invest to an area that I wouldn't think would provide a good return on investment. That being said, I think that the section of Aurora with Naperville 204 is a good investment. I especially think that the sections that will go to the new high school in 2009 offer the potential to increase in value faster than the ones that will stay WVHS. You really won't be happy with anything in Naperville once you see what you can afford in the Aurora sections that have District 204. District 203 is the established Naperville school district that runs Naperville North and Naperville Central. I remember that many people who were zoned 203 tried to fight being rezoned into 204 when Neuqua was built and now it is ranked as one of the top schools in the state, almost even with the 203 high schools. The Naperville school districts really know what they are doing and are quite impressive, especially given the number of children they serve. I wouldn't go to the west side of Aurora even though I grew up there because I personally feel my kids would get a better education at WV than at West Aurora and I would choose the new high school over WV. Obviously that is my personal opinion but I can tell you from experience that I went to a very competitive high school (Benet) when we moved from Aurora where myself and my brother had a hard time adjusting the first year because all the Naperville kids had exposure to the material and we hadn't had exposure and I was in the gifted program in Aurora. My younger siblings had no problem and were ahead of the game entering the same high school because they had the foundation of the better schools. We all did extremely well in college and graduate school. So invest in the schools not only for yourself but for the kids too. 225K can even buy you a home in Aurora 204 which would eliminate the assessments charge from your monthly expenses. But you can afford a really nice townhome. Your insurance bill will not add alot to your monthly bills. My husband's cousin lives in a really nice townhome community zoned Waubonsie and she has a child in jr high. They moved from Plainfield and are very happy with the schools. The townhome communities mentioned are really nice as is Oakhurst if you are looking for a home.
Good Luck with your search, let me know if you need help.
I also feel compelled to mention that despite OBM usuaully have first rate info, I have no idea why she would think Nequa Valley does better in educating kids than Naperville North or Central. While it is very modern school with great stuff, it is not on the reliable US News list of Silver or Bronze Schools: Best High Schools Search - US News and World Report
Everything else she says about the 204 section of Aurora is dead on.
Chet - Why rehash old threads when you hate when others do that? Where you looking for something bad to say about my posts? Besides I didn't say better, I said almost even and I only compared NV to NN and NC. Look at the last few years high school ACT scores of the three schools and you'll see the difference is slight plus all are in the top part of the rankings. My family had many friends in White Eagle back when that first redistricting happened and they were beyond upset, just like many of the subdivisions that hired lawyers to fight the shift from NV to WV. In a few years all these posts might be irrelevant because of the new high school and the redistricting. Plus, did you look at their budget? They weren't going to find what they wanted back then for 225K in 203. They just needed to know that in 204 their children would still receive a very good education. As you can see from my post, my husband's cousin lives in Aurora - I do practice what I preach, I will place my own family in 204. My husband and I looked extensively in Naperville for our own family a few years ago when he was in between jobs and we almost jumped on a home in 204-NV before he got the offer up in Evanston. I visited many of the schools in both 203 & 204 and talked with principals about all their tracks since I have children with varying needs. I was very impressed with all the schools, especially given the shear numbers that they serve.
Sorry OBM -- there was an interlopper with racist comments (thankfully since deleted). I sorta lose my head when I see those kind of "additions" to threads...
I agree with what you posted about prices in 203 vs 204. I just can't help myself from stomping on the "all schools are great" mindset that really does pacify too many people into doing anything to demand better. I honestly believe that a large part of the mess we have on our hands right not is traceable to the lack of seriousness that people have with regard to the quality of students that our schools produce. If every school was required to have courses in "smart financial choices" and "planning for a life where you can earn more than you spend" I think it would easier on all of us
There is even an argument to be made that as schools like WV & NV stretch out the far corners of the region the shear "thinness" of resources that this encourages makes it tougher to have quality towns with well designed homes, and work situations that foster parental involvement. I don't realy buy that, but I have seen it in both architecture/ planning journals and eduction journals...
Aurora is notorious for crime and gangs. Id steer clear of it. Naperville is a FAR superior town, but youll pay for it. The downtown area of Aurora, with the exception of the riverboat, is nothing but junk and Hispanic stores (if you like that sort of thing). The school system is poor and alot of the town is made up of illegals. I avoid that town at all costs. But as Brucerby states, there are some nice areas that are cheaper than Naperville. Your best bet is to find one of those neighborhoods and make sure that if you have children that they will attend Naperville school districts.
Your comment would depend on where you live in Aurora. Also Naperville is not totally devoid of crime.
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Aurora, IL Information
The downtown area of Aurora, with the exception of the riverboat, is nothing but junk and Hispanic stores (if you like that sort of thing). The school system is poor and alot of the town is made up of illegals. I avoid that town at all costs. But as Brucerby states, there are some nice areas that are cheaper than Naperville. Your best bet is to find one of those neighborhoods and make sure that if you have children that they will attend Naperville school districts.
Never did I say it was BAD, I just stated that its prevalent. Are you gonna dispute that? If you do, youre just as dumb as the person who bashed me on the Joliet thread. 
Downtown Aurora has LOTS of Hispanic stores, and like I stated, its the truth. And also, like I stated, I pointed that out for the author in case he liked that kind of thing. Do I like it? Heck yes, theres nothing better than hitting up a authentic Mexican restaurant and getting some REAL tacos. But would I want to move to a town where Im constantly subjected to it? Maybe. Thats just my opinion. I have mine and you have yours, right? Right. So, lets keep it at that and please dont point the finger at me and generalize me, because youre wrong. 
I stated the facts for the author in hopes that he would understand, I find no fault in that.
