Where did yuppies live in 1980?

[marence]

Originally Posted by SmartGXL

I would say, any high rise along the lakefront would have been acceptable, as the 70's was a period when many of the existing lakefront high-rises were being built.

Also, I would not say that the character wound up living in Schaumburg; that particular suburb does not fit, in my mind, where this type of character would end up. I would say more somewhere in the north burbs where her future kids can go to New Trier High School.

Also, in order to place the character, we need to know more about her background...why is she in the city, where is she from originally? What is her motivation for being here and living alone? Is she a "Mary Tyler Moore" type of character, who watched Maude and ALL in the Family in the 70's while in college, fleeing her boring sleepy hometown in MN for a piece of the big city life? Did she hang out in discos while in college in 1978? You say she is conservative, did she get involved in politics during the 1980 election? Was SHE the one who stuck the "Reagan/Bush 1980" bumper sticker on that green metal light-pole on Oakdale Avenue that is STILL THERE 30 years later? We need to know more about her to know what her personality is like, in order to place her in the appropriate part of town.

OK, here goes. I'm writing a 70's period piece set in Cleveland that somehow turned into a murder mystery with flashbacks. Most of my main characters attended high schools in the Cleveland suburbs, graduating in 1977 or 1978. The character that's giving me fits is Sandy, born March 1959, hometown Parma, Ohio. She graduated from Normandy High School in Parma in 1977, where she hung mostly with the freaks (the high school at the time had 3000 kids and only two big in-groups, the freaks and the jocks, numbering a hundred or so each across 3 grades.) She went to Cleveland State University while living at home and graduated with a BA in business. During her 3 years at CSU, she tested out of many gen ed requirements, and became a sort of a grind, especially after a Major Bad Event during the summer after her first year (summer of '78), when she cut off her old friendships.
She wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore and was afraid she'd end up as Rhoda's sister. She fell into the stoner crowd in high school mostly out of boredom but easily gave it up when things started getting too exciting. In college she became enamored with making money and being a businesswoman and wearing suits and heels to work. She's a hard worker, but was raised to look for a good husband. She wants to be in a big city, but not New York or LA, and wants to lose the stigma of hanging with the freaks in high school. I really don't have anything planned for her between 1981 and 2009, but somehow I think she went from a walkup in a gentrified/gentrifying area to a condo on the shore to a marriage at 30 and 2 kids by 35 - here's where Schaumburg fits in - and somewhere along the way she went from being Sandy to Sandra.
She probably went to Young Republican parties and voted for Reagan, but didn't follow politics, it was just good business to go where the other junior execs on the fast track went. She would be horrified by the thought of putting a sticker on a pole; she does ***** out another character early on because of graffiti.

Does that help?