Clarendon Hills vs. Downers Grove (Naperville, Westmont: real estate, first time home buyer, neighborhoods)

[Yankee BBQ Boy]

[quote=Gioobag;9694048]I don't think the OP ever once said "racial diveristy" or "diversity" was a criterion, so kindly stop pushing that garbage again. Leaving Oak Park and "liking the community in CH" is what the OP said.

Excuse me - do I know you? Please don't assume that you know what I believe in or that I am "pushing that garbage again" whatever that means.

A home is more than an investment, it is a place to live. A "good deal" in an area that you might not like is hardly a good value. I have lived in Clarendon Hills for over 25 years so i think I haver a good idea of what the village is like. I gave my opinion of the different tones between the two communities and the OP is welcome to either think about what I say or ignore it as irrelevant to his or her situation.

That's the beautiful thing about these forums - tolerance for other ideas.

[ajolotl]

No reasonable person would say that you "pushed" anything. That is a reading comprehension problem on the part of goobag. You characterized what you thought were the differences between the towns. There wasn't necessarily even an implied value judgment let alone an explicit peddling of anything.


[quote=Yankee BBQ Boy;9701990]

Originally Posted by Gioobag

I don't think the OP ever once said "racial diveristy" or "diversity" was a criterion, so kindly stop pushing that garbage again. Leaving Oak Park and "liking the community in CH" is what the OP said.

Excuse me - do I know you? Please don't assume that you know what I believe in or that I am "pushing that garbage again" whatever that means.

A home is more than an investment, it is a place to live. A "good deal" in an area that you might not like is hardly a good value. I have lived in Clarendon Hills for over 25 years so i think I haver a good idea of what the village is like. I gave my opinion of the different tones between the two communities and the OP is welcome to either think about what I say or ignore it as irrelevant to his or her situation.

That's the beautiful thing about these forums - tolerance for other ideas.

[ajolotl]

Goobag is proud of his views on race and wants to apply them at any opportunity that seems to present itself. Goo: just start a thread an air your opinions. I thought they were interesting. Don't be one of these hammers looking for a nail everywhere.

[TennisDD]

I agree with those for tolerance of opinion. I do find Hinsdale/Clarendon Hills to be too snooty for my taste and find the blocks of tear downs hideous. Does that make it so? Of course not. Everyone has their own opinion on what beauty is.

Downers Grove is more middle America and in my opinion has a great downtown.

[chet everett]

I would like to see any block that has any hideous teardowns in CH. As I live here I can tell you that the quality of homes that were replaced was uniformly crummy, this is not merely an aesthertic opinion it is a fact that the size and type of construction of the vast majority of homes torn down in CH was very poor. CH never had much "carriage trade" unlike Hinsdale where a handful of well built houses were torn down becuase it made more economic sense to start from scratch than to restore. Of the teardowns in Hinsdale the most in demand are those that are so detailed and authentic that they seamlessly blend into the neighborhood.

I just got back home from cheering for a neighbor's kids in Little League, did not hear or see any snootiness what so ever. I am curious as to where you may have encountered something different.

I grew up in the area and believe me DG is not at all immune from teardowns or snootiness.
Further I find the selection of stores and resturants in downtown DG to be somewhat disappointing. Although it is much larger than a town like Western Springs I often find myself and my friends drawn much more to WS than DG. The decision of DG to construct a massive set of parking decks is rather odd, and the very large new condo complexes have significantly changed the fell of the town, not for the better either.


Where may I ask do you live?

[TennisDD]

Geneva, I live. Again, just my opinion. I think the McMansion house on a regular lot and a two car garage is ugly. So many houses look like they are squished onto the lot. Just not my style.

[chet everett]

Ah yes Geneva, home to down and out folks in McMansions on huge lots in enclaves out next to the Meijer and a handful of folks lucky enough to have a pretty old home that the Kane Co highway Dept has not built a superhighway through the front lawn. No snootiness out there, no siree...

Many homes in Clarendon Hills are tiny by Geneva standards. The small size of my town makes it easy for me to literally walk from one end to the other with nary a backed up roadway to cross.

I do think that some of the Victorians in Geneva are infinitely more attractive than newer homes, but truly none of those were ever in CH.

CH has a fairly wide variety of lot sizes, with some under 35 feet and many more than double that so the streetscape is what most planner types would not call squished at all. The FAR is also tightly regulated, with deep front setbacks that are really never given variances. For those who wish to have a two car garage (and many folks have only a one car garage door hiding a tandem garage...) they need to have a lot with plenty of width and overall size.

You need to get out more.

[Yankee BBQ Boy]

Most of the houses in Clarendon Hills that were torn down during our tear down phase were 50's and 60's ranches and cape cod style houses. Many of them had seen better days and have benefitted the community from an architectural standpoint as you don't see many houses that are run down or really notice an "old part of town" since you can have houses from the 50's and 60's (like my house alongside a 2 year old faux french country style house. There are very few older victorian houses in Clarendon Hills unlike Hinsdale or La Grange.

There is also a wide variation in the size of the lots here with many being the 60' varieties while others are double lots or even the 60' by 200' size. The styles of the houses are usually dictated by the size of the lot that they are on.

My concern was that the tear down phenomenon changed the age and socioeconomic makeup of the town. When we first moved into Clarendon Hills, there was a mix of young and old as well as professional and working class people. Then, when people were paying $400.000 to $600,000 for a house to be torn down replacing it with a $1.2 to 1.8 million dollars mansion, the old people left as the property taxes became unbearable(but financially secure if they timed the sale of their home right) and the town became skewed with the mid 30's and 40's yuppies moving into their 4000 sq. ft. home with 1-2 kids. When i went to my daughters functions in the elementary school, you couldn't find parents in their twenties because they now can't afford to live here. Most of the parents now whose children are in elementary school are in their 40's and 50's.

This is the concern I have given my working class roots - it might not be a concern for others.

[chet everett]

I respectfully disagree that there are more than a handful of parents with elementary students that are NOT in the normal late 20 to early 40 age range. Further in my block alone the age and income range is extraordinary -- from SEVERAL retired couples that still live the MODEST homes where they raised their children long ago to families with new babies and very lucrative careers to many "middle of life folks" who either still have school age children at home or are empty nesters.

As I said above when I was at the Little League game the other night I saw a very NORMAL cross section of parents. Most would fit right in with the crowd in ANY OTHER TOWN IN DUPAGE CO. The fact is our ENTIRE REGION has grown in desirability and the incomes of towns along the BNSF has risen as more successful people choose to live in the area.

It is frankly impossible to "legislate" income and choice of home style.

[Yankee BBQ Boy]

In Clarendon Hills, you will see few if any parents in the elementary schools who are in their twenties - the houses are just too expensive for someone that young to afford. Most of the parents that I saw were in their mid thirties and early forties. I don't know if it that way in your town or not, but this is what I have observed in Clarendon Hills.

You are correct in that you can't legislate living location and housing choice nor would I support that. In some ways, I think the economy has forced people to look at housing in a different light. Whether that is good or bad will be determined later.