Where are the nice homes in Chicago? (Woodstock, La Grange: cheap house, neighborhoods)

[stephei2000]

Originally Posted by UrbanCheetah

This is the problem with the country, we want more and we want more and we want more, but we don't want to foot the bill. She wants to live in a McMansion but only wants to spend $200k?! It's sad that people value banal/ugly aesthetics over character and craftmanship. I think if people in this country weren't so materialistic and wanting everything so big we would be in a much better place. I know it's preference, but come one, there is such a thing as common taste and tact.

I'd much rather live in a 3 bedroom Victorian style house with character that only has one bathroom, than in a McMansion that has no soul but a bathroom for each bedroom. Houses and our tastes very much so reflect who are just as clothes do. If you're style is McMansions I think that says a lot about you.

Oh my God! Stop being such a urban snob already. Victorian are definitely not a favorite, but Chicago to me has the worst kind of Victorian brown and flat. To me San Francisco for what I have seen in photos has a less depressing and slightly more beautiful Victorian with brighter colors.

To me this can make a difference. However, I prefer older style colonials.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by stephei2000

Funny that is the one I hate the most. A million dollars for that. No way.

19500 Afton Road, Detroit MI - Trulia

18221 Muirland Street, Detroit MI - Trulia

These to me are examples of beautiful homes and neighborhoods. This is what I thought the majority of the Northside of Chicago would look like.

Those are nice looking homes, but they are NOT McMansions. Definitely look like NW side of Chicago homes.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Those are nice looking homes, but they are NOT McMansions. Definitely look like NW side of Chicago homes.

Yeah, there are parts of Chicago that look like this, but they are not easily found in the lakefront neighborhoods which were built out in the late 1800s. You see these types of construction in the 1920 to 1940s period, so for Chicago this means neighborhoods in the western part of the city. Much of Oak Park was built out in this time period and looks like this. Our first house in Oak Park was built in 1937 and is a smaller version of these Georgian mansions.

[stephei2000]

Originally Posted by Atlanta_BD

As a Chicago native in the south who is an apartment dweller, if/when I do move back to Chicago I will more than likely buy a condo because I don't really have a need for a SFH. If I were to buy a house, I'd kill for one of those brick bungalows (this style)! I don't need a two-story house with a huge yard.

Even as far as apartments go, I'd rather live in this in Chicago:





As opposed to this in the south (and this is considered luxury here):

Either one of these would not be in my favor, but I rather live the second one. Style like this remind me of being in dungeon and feel very dark, moody, and depressing. It gives Chicago a very dark look which is unappealing. Going inside I feel like I am back in 1910 in a dark castle or haunted house and does not feel homey to me and feels like I will be going to be crucified like in the history books if I break any laws.

An apartment to me is bright, floor to celling windows which will allow for lots of sunlight spacious with a nice carpet. Yes, I have committed a cardinal sin, yes carpet!

Wood floors can be nice if it is in a nice large home. As, I prefer colonial architecture, well built like from the 1930s and 1940s and not McMansion as much.

Maybe if all the architecture varied and was brighter in Chicago, I might feel a little different.


I glad this topic got started as it is a hot button, and it the look of the the trendy Northside of Chicago is the number #1 I avoided living in the city even in my prime 20s.

[stephei2000]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Those are nice looking homes, but they are NOT McMansions. Definitely look like NW side of Chicago homes.

Exactly, I have stated I do not really care about McMansions as I have been in some suburbs with no greenery and have a planned community.

I am not a fan of that either. I like parts like the NW Chicago it is like an inbetween. The lakefront neighborhoods are most exciting, but I hate the look.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by stephei2000

These to me are examples of beautiful homes and neighborhoods. This is what I thought the majority of the Northside of Chicago would look like.

Very beautiful. You can find them in Beverly or Sauganash, but you're right that these types of houses are rare in the city. But they can be found in many of the older suburbs that grew up along rail lines.

[oakparkdude]

Incidentally, I read that back in the roaring 20s, there were two great American boomtowns. LA and Detroit. Both were growing rapidly and built out at that time with largely SFH housing stock, unlike older, more established cities where multi-family housing predominated (Chicago, to name just one.) Obviously, after WW2, the trajectories of the two cities diverged, so nowadays hardly anyone considers that the two were once peers.

[stephei2000]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

Yeah, there are parts of Chicago that look like this, but they are not easily found in the lakefront neighborhoods which were built out in the late 1800s. You see these types of construction in the 1920 to 1940s period, so for Chicago this means neighborhoods in the western part of the city. Much of Oak Park was built out in this time period and looks like this. Our first house in Oak Park was built in 1937 and is a smaller version of these Georgian mansions.

Exactly, this is why I chose Oak Park over the city when I first came here even thought I was suppose to be in love with Northside because of my age.

I was like the OP, I could stand the look of urban trendy neighborhoods or any part of Chicago that has that look.

[stephei2000]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Very beautiful. You can find them in Beverly or Sauganash, but you're right that these types of houses are rare in the city. But they can be found in many of the older suburbs that grew up along rail lines.

Sorry for so many post as I feel strongly about this topic, and I glad there is some agreement about the beauty.

This is the area I grew up in Detroit, and this is what I was use to. This is why I could not stomach the Chicago urban look. It was so different and depressing to me. I remember when I came here to visit and my first time in a cab driving outside of Downtown, I was like where are the lawns and grass.

He started laughing his a** off. Shows you how much I knew about Chicago, and I guess pays to really be into or know your history.

[Atlanta_BD]

Originally Posted by UrbanCheetah

This is the problem with the country, we want more and we want more and we want more, but we don't want to foot the bill. She wants to live in a McMansion but only wants to spend $200k?!

I notice this more from people from much smaller cities or places that have lots of sprawl.

Originally Posted by UrbanCheetah

It's sad that people value banal/ugly aesthetics over character and craftmanship. I think if people in this country weren't so materialistic and wanting everything so big we would be in a much better place. I know it's preference, but come one, there is such a thing as common taste and tact.

I'd much rather live in a 3 bedroom Victorian style house with character that only has one bathroom, than in a McMansion that has no soul but a bathroom for each bedroom. Houses and our tastes very much so reflect who are just as clothes do. If you're style is McMansions I think that says a lot about you.

It says a lot about the environment one grows up in and their culture.

I don’t disagree. I’m just saying that some people in the south have not been exposed to true urban environments if they haven’t lived in one, because the south just doesn’t have that. The OP references Atlanta but Atlanta isn’t nearly as urban as Chicago and the cheap houses she keeps talking about here are in the suburbs.

For example, I get into it with folks in the Atlanta forum all the time because they I’m exaggerating or referring only to specific areas when I say you can live in Chicago car-free and that I did it the entire time there. I never even had as much as a driver’s license before I moved to Atlanta. They can’t grasp how urban Chicago truly is that you can live just fine without a car because they are so car-dependent here--just as I couldn’t grasp a major metropolitan area not having sidewalks throughout when I moved here. Here it's all about the big house and the nice car.

Along with the history and gritty urban-ness of Chicago come a different culture, infrastructure and architecture.

These cheap “Atlanta” homes are in the suburbs. If someone says they got a huge house for cheap in Atlanta, they are often talking about some place like Alpharetta, Suwanee, Woodstock, Duluth, Marietta or McDonough—all suburbs that are 20-40 miles outside the city depending on where you work. There’s no distinguishing the city from the burbs here, so maybe that’s why the OP thought she could find McMansions in Chicago’s city limits. Most of the 5 million plus (over 90%) of Metro Atlanta residents live in the suburbs. Atlanta proper has less than 450k people; so hence the suburban mentality of people who live in or love Metro Atlanta.

The appeal of the McMansions in the south is not just the space, but if you have the big house in the suburbs, you have arrived. I’m not saying materialism doesn’t exist in Chicago but there’s definitely a pressure here to look like you have wealth here even when you don’t have it, and that usually means buying one of these big houses. Southerners are obsessed with homeownership in a way that I found really bizarre when I moved here. They think this is the only place you can own a house.

Many of the people here in the south don’t want to “appear” to be working class. They want to appear as if they have wealth. For them, these huge houses regardless if they are generic, have no real character, history and are poorly constructed, are a status symbol.

Chicago is a traditionally a blue collar city. Those old Chicago bungalows were first occupied immigrant working class people. But it still doesn’t change the fact that those are high-quality, very well-constructed homes. One poster commented that the houses in Chicago are unattractive and “look working class.” I don’t know if she moved to Chicago from the south, but that is definitely a prevalent mentality down here. Perhaps a lot of Chicagoans don’t sweat not having the big back yard because we always had the lake and many neighborhoods have parks that you can walk to from your home that always had some kind of events and activities. I participated in park field house and library activities all the time as a kid growing up in Chicago. We spent more time going to the museums, hanging out downtown, exploring other neighborhoods, and doing activities and festivals around the city, and going to parks than playing in our own back yard and our yard was HUGE. Chicago has too much going on for kids to feel deprived from not having a large backyard.

I’d rather live in a 2 bedroom condo on Lake Michigan than own a sprawling, cookie-cutter plywood house in someplace like Woodstock, GA.