Need Help! Young Mid 20s family moving to Chicago wants Easy Access to Highway (Naperville: apartments)

[BoomerSooner]

My wife and I are moving to Chicago and desperately need some advice. She'll be working downtown and I'll be commuting a couple times a week all over between (Schaumburg, Libertyville, Naperville, Lake Forest, Milwaukee, Benton Harbor). We are considering Lincoln Park or Wrigleville but we are open to suggestions. I've attached a few more thoughts below to provide a bit more info. Thanks in advance for the advice.

- Mid 20s
- Looking to Rent - approx $1.5K a month
- 2 or 3 bedrooms
- Prefer Garage (Do I need this?)

[HollyhockGarden]

Hello! Congratulations on your upcoming move to Chicago! My husband and I are Chicago-area (Hinsdale) natives, now living in Arizona. I would consider living and renting an apartment, or perhaps an old-fashioned two-flat, in a western suburban area. I would suggest renting close (walking distance) to downtown stores, library, churches, restaurants, and railroad stations - in LaGrange, Elmhurst (both have downtown movie theaters) , River Forest, or Oak Park. Living in an old-fashioned apartment building or two-flat is a great experience and the units usually have loads of character such as woodwork, bay windows, sun porches, and convenient locations on tree-lined streets. The commuter train is an easy way to get downtown to the Loop. Two-flats often come with a garage, which is nice. Lincoln Park is a nice part of town with lots of architectural character. The down side to living there is that parking is an issue and $1,500 may not get you much square footage in an apartment. Sometimes you can rent a garage space for an additional fee; however that does not solve the parking problem if you have company arriving by car. They will end up driving all around looking for an empty parking space. I would suggest an inner-ring suburb with classic apartments and two-flats, along with a vibrant downtown. Good luck!

[Drover]

Lincoln Park and Wrigleyville are fine enough neighborhoods but access to expressways can be nightmarish. Then again, you're going to have a nightmarish commute to most of the places you list no matter what part of Chicago you live in. Still, if you want a neighborhood with Lincoln Park or Wrigleyville-level of hipness and quick expressway access, your best bets are Bucktown and Wicker Park; the Kennedy Expressway borders both neighborhoods (or runs through them, depending on whose neighborhood map you're looking at).

[Drover]

And yes, you'll need a garage in Wrigleyville or Lincoln Park, unless you like parking up to 4 blocks away from your apartment and/or getting parking tickets at least once a month. Bucktown and Wicker Park aren't quite as dense and parking is not quite as difficult, but it can still get pretty tight in the evening when everyone is home from work, and random acts of vandalism are a problem just about anywhere in the city. Expect to pay about $200/mo for a garage unless it's already part of your lease agreement, in which case a premium will be built into your rent. 2 bedrooms and a garage for $1.5K/mo is pretty doable in Bucktown and Wicker Park, maybe a bit less so in Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park. 3 bedrooms and a garage is still possible in Bucktown and Wicker Park, but not probable; and pretty unlikely in Lincoln Park and Wrigleyville.

[chicago103]

Live somewhere in the city where your wife can take public transportation downtown and thus you can get by with just one car in your household primarily for your scattered commuting. Honestly the closer to the circle interchange the better (just SW of downtown) giving good transit access for your wife and the best access to the expressways for your commutes that seem to be in all directions, well downtown Chicago or the city in general is the epicenter of all those locations you listed.

[chet everett]

Every post is dated.