Best Chicago neighborhood for a single professional female in mid 30's (Naperville: townhomes, neighborhoods)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by SmilesNFun

Hey guys ,
Thank you for the input. I am pro public transit - I infact prefer it to driving unless I can find a carpool group. I have asked my employer for the physical location they would need me to be at - as winfield and geneva are off UPW - but then again, getting from the metra station to the hospital seems difficult....

That's good. If you're talking about the Central Dupage Hospital, then that's practically right next to the Metra. If not, then look back through and find the mention of the PACE bus and see if it could take you to your workplace fast if not opposed to that.

[chet everett]

It is far more efficient to live someplace like Oak Park and have a sucky but still manageable commute to work in a town like Carol Stream or Winfield (neither of which are really easy to commute to not all that nice, but they do have some medical offices and such so I can see how you'd probably have a decent income...) than to try and live in Chicago and have a whole lot more hassles day-in & day-out. Parking in the "hot" neighborhoods of Chicago is a lot more of a challenge than anywhere in even a close-in suburb, as are the incidences of even minor property crimes and such. As a plus Oak Park does enough attractive features for a new comer to explore for at least a couple of years, maybe until you decide to either settle in the burbs closer to work or land a job inside Chicago itself (or head back to Boston or whatever...)

Assuming you are going to making low / mid six figures you probably won't have a problem affording a nice apartment but it would be NUTS to try to maintain two apartments. Even a studio in a decent part of Chicago is going to drain your resources and living in a nice area gets CRAZY expensive for everything - you tend to spend a fortune on even "little things" that quickly add up. {for the sake of my adoring fans I will review one of their favorite stories -- once you have two residences you may find yourselfing doing pretty foolish things like instead of using a washer and dryer you end up sending all your clothes to a dry cleaner or instead using your kitchen you end up getting carry out for all your meals. The easier it is for you to "not see" these expenses the easier it is for you to massively overspend...} For a couple hundred bucks a month you will not be be able to get a second apartment but you can get decent enough deal on a hotel room and you have nearly zero hassle as hotels are designed to allow you to pop-in with just the clothes on your back / an overnight bag w/o feeling some freak AND they make it pretty clear when you check out with $50 dry cleaning bills and $100 room service charges for breakfast that you'll make yourself BROKE if you abuse the the convenience...

Originally Posted by ToriaT

Or live in the burbs and rent hotels on the weekends when you want to be in the city. You can get cheap rooms at good places on priceline. probably cheaper and less hassle than renting. I constantly toy with buying a small condo in the city and then think its cheaper to rent a hotel for the time I want to be there.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by SmilesNFun

Hey guys ,
Thank you for the input. I am pro public transit - I infact prefer it to driving unless I can find a carpool group. I have asked my employer for the physical location they would need me to be at - as winfield and geneva are off UPW - but then again, getting from the metra station to the hospital seems difficult....

Perhaps you didn't read my posts very carefully, but it is quite feasible to have a car parked overnight at a suburban metra station to cover the last few miles from the Metra station to the Hospital. I have done this for 7 years reverse commuting from Oak Park to Geneva. CDH is one block from the Winfield Metra station, while Delnor is only two miles from the Geneva Metra station. Not sure what exactly is in Carol Stream, perhaps your outpatient clinic? If you are a physician, you likely have some degree of control over your work schedule, so that makes it even easier to tolerate long commutes. Plus, riding the Metra is a lot more comfortable and relaxing than taking the T (I used to ride the T from Davis Sq to Longwood).

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by chet everett

It is far more efficient to live someplace like Oak Park and have a sucky but still manageable commute to work in a town like Carol Stream or Winfield (neither of which are really easy to commute to not all that nice, but they do have some medical offices and such so I can see how you'd probably have a decent income...) than to try and live in Chicago and have a whole lot more hassles day-in & day-out. Parking in the "hot" neighborhoods of Chicago is a lot more of a challenge than anywhere in even a close-in suburb, as are the incidences of even minor property crimes and such.

I agree that it would be easier, but there's tradeoffs. There's lifestyle tradeoffs. If you don't care about that, then I would definitely recommend somewhere like Oak Park no doubt. Also, as far as the "hot" neighborhoods and parking? The poster said they wanted Manhattan-esque which would include West Loop, Loop, River North, Streeterville, South Loop, and Gold Coast. None of these places have street parking except the Gold Coast, for which you'd have to rent/buy a condo or an extremely small building with no private garage. I don't think I've seen too many tall apartment/condo complexes that don't actually have their own private parking garages. If you actually owned a car and lived in these neighborhoods, pretty much every place has private parking which you have an assigned spot anyway. The point would be moot until they start going to areas such as Wicker Park, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, etc. Downtown living with parking is no big deal because you have a private garage with a spot anyway.

[SmilesNFun]

So, I will be working at central dupage through december or January - Hence commuting on UPW will be easy. I am thinking of starting out with a 6 month lease anywhere on the metra station, checking out neighborhoods and going from there - perhaps oak park or somewhere near ogilvie....any suggestions on finding a 6 month rental or even a roommate situation. It would be nice to have someone at home in a new city....

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by SmilesNFun

So, I will be working at central dupage through december or January - Hence commuting on UPW will be easy. I am thinking of starting out with a 6 month lease anywhere on the metra station, checking out neighborhoods and going from there - perhaps oak park or somewhere near ogilvie....any suggestions on finding a 6 month rental or even a roommate situation. It would be nice to have someone at home in a new city....

That's good. Right on the UP-W. I would check out West Loop somewhere...maybe like as far north as Lake Street, and as far south as Monroe or Adams. East of the Freeway. That way you could easily walk to work. Otherwise, if you don't mind taking the bus a few stops in the morning to Ogilvie..The around bounded same as North South but on the other side of the freeway isn't bad, like Green Street and around there. There's some very very good restaurants and bars/lounges. Actually, a few of the best in town are on Fulton Market. Lake Street and Fulton Market all have the very good restaurants. There's some nice apartments/condo buildings on Madison too... There are highrises in the area, more East of the freeway, but there are some nice places West of it of course, just not as many high rises (more lofts and stuff like that).

Of course, UP-W goes through Oak Park so the thing about living there for 6 months and checking out the city isn't bad either.. But if you want a short commute on the Metra train with city (Manhattan-esque) living, I suggest the above.


For fun, here's a few of the places in West Loop area that are very high for food. Look them up ;-)
The Girl & The Goat
Next
The Publican
Moto
Avec
Blackbird
ING


Edit: Didn't see that you were only going to be there through December/January. Any indication of after that?

[SmilesNFun]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Edit: Didn't see that you were only going to be there through December/January. Any indication of after that?

Thanks for the neighborhood info. As per the recruiter, the office is moving to Carol Stream in January 2013. Gosh...decision making is tough ..and having options makes it tougher!LOL . I really appreciate all the highly informative responses on this forum,....hopefully will be able to make a sound decision...

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by SmilesNFun

Thanks for the neighborhood info. As per the recruiter, the office is moving to Carol Stream in January 2013. Gosh...decision making is tough ..and having options makes it tougher!LOL . I really appreciate all the highly informative responses on this forum,....hopefully will be able to make a sound decision...

Assuming the Carol Stream office is at 381 South Schmale Road, its only 2 miles from the Wheaton Metra station. There actually is a bus that goes from the Wheaton Metra station right past the office, but it doesn't run very frequently and would require long waits between train and bus. So, while it might work as a back-up, you'll want another way to travel those two miles. The ideal would be a commuter car parked at the Wheaton or College Ave Metra station. Both stations are in Wheaton, so you should check with Wheaton townhall to see if overnight parking is (hopefully) allowed.

From downtown Chicago to Wheaton is about 50 minutes on the train, so add in travel time in the car, and its probably a bit over an hour. For this to work you'd probably want to live very close to the train station in Chicago, possibly right across the street, otherwise getting to the station would add a lot more to the door-to-door time. If you start from Oak Park, it cuts about 15 minutes off your commute.

[Larry Siegel]

When I was single, if I lived in the suburbs I would have felt like a fish on a mountaintop.

I would live downtown and drive. Try to negotiate for odd hours (very early in the morning to mid-afternoon, or very late in the morning to mid-evening). You will have to get used to spending more time in the car, but at least when you get home, you'll feel at home; there will be familiar faces around; not everybody will be 45 years old with kids; and there are a zillion places to go that are open late.

Oak Park would be a reasonable compromise, but I don't know what it's like to be single there. It's hip and "looks" like it ought to have a singles community.

Just my 2 cents.

[Plzeň]

Originally Posted by Larry Siegel

When I was single, if I lived in the suburbs I would have felt like a fish on a mountaintop.

I tried it, and that's exactly what it felt like. In fact, next time someone asks me why I moved into the city, I'm going to borrow that phrase from you. I'm not even a "city person" per se (I'm from a small town), but I found suburbia to just be absolutely soul-crushing. Two hours per day in my car isn't heaven, but it's totally worth it for me.