Family friendly Chicago neighborhoods? (Naperville, Evanston: real estate, renting, buy)

[chet everett]

Really, you ought to check your numbers: Union Pacific / Northwest (UP-NW) Schedule

[chet everett]

No need to grasp at straws, if you work normal business hours there are lots of good options to take Metra downtown from pretty much any of the suburbs with train service using an express.

There is not enough passenger volume / track capacity for Metra to run expresses from the stops inside the city, and even if they did the time saved would not be significant.

Driving from the NW side to downtown is no picnic , and getting to / from other parts of the city via car or public transit flat out sucks. A long time ago the first mayor Daley knew that and tried to get funding to build the Crosstown Expressway to address that. The corrupt Chicago congressional delegation coould have pulled it off if their own petty schemes didn't land them in jail...

I take no pleasure in the fact Chicago has dysfunctional government and schools, but to ignore the consequences of years of mismanagement is not in my make-up. If Chicago would have wasted a lot less of its potential on gold plating already nice aspects of the city many of the outer neighborhoods would be more stable...

It does not take much to realize that employment centers reachable by car from Barrington are at least as good as the options of driving from the NW side to other regional employment hubs. Even when the various local leaders in Schaumburg or Hoffman Estates or Barrington or Elgin "compete" to attract employers they already are far ahead of efforts to attract employers to locations at other than the beginning / end of the Kennedy...

[tomcho]

Are you really comparing Barrington to the NW side of Chicago? That is so outlandish no futher discussion is really needed. It's clear you simply don't get it, there are many reasons people want to be close to downtown that aren't served by your voodoo metra math.

[chet everett]

IF THE OP or ANYONE ELSE asked about living downtown so they could visit the Art Institute or the Adler Planetarium or Newberry Libary after work / school I would be more than happy to point them toward locations in te Gold Coast or South / West Loop.

When folks instead say they want a place that gives them a nice short commute to work and want a good value for their family's housing dollar there are much better places to spend one's housing dollar...

There is no glamour in having to endure multiple vehicle thefts, getting a nice Chicago-style punch to temple mugging, over paying for darned near everything just to having 606xx on one's address. When I moved out of Chicago it was not out of hatred but resignation ...

My sister has different lifestyle than I do. She and her partner love their home in Lincoln Square. Their priorities align with the choices they have made.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by tomcho

Are you really comparing Barrington to the NW side of Chicago? That is so outlandish no futher discussion is really needed. It's clear you simply don't get it, there are many reasons people want to be close to downtown that aren't served by your voodoo metra math.

The NW side has a few nicer restaurants that you duck into for a night out with a friend or a family meal, so does Barrington.

The NW side has very few pigmented residents,as does Barrington.

The NW side is not particulary convenient to any of the traditional attractions of Chicago's core, similar to Barrington...

[MannheimMadman]

I think the issue within the last couple of pages is that there is a disconnect of emotion from analytics.

Chet is merely using data and crunching numbers to show what he means to say.

However, that little thing called emotion tends to skew people's opinions and desires.

Dollar for dollar, you'd have to agree that Chicago is probably a huge hassle and money pit when it comes to living here. I know it is.

However, when you add in all the 'perceived' value (and each user perceives in their own way) the reasons for staying in Chicago make so much more sense.

I don't even own property, and I will still gladly live here despite:

high sales taxes, high fees (city sticker, etc..), high gasoline costs, issues related to living in an urban area (such as parking 3 blocks away from home), safety issues (I have been burglarized and had my car attempted to be broken into).

And guess what? I'll still pay $300K for a small 2 BR condo if I had to. There is so much 'value' to me with regards to living here.

All Chet is saying is that, when one disaggregates 'perceived value' from actual value for services rendered by property tax and home price (infrastructure, schools), there a lot of places that have way more bang for the buck versus Chicago.

[chet everett]

Lord knows I would have never made a dime taking buyers that wanted a Burr Ridge address through homes in Oak Brook or vice verse.

Of course I am not trying to convince someone already "married" to living inside the city to "get a divorce", but when folks fail to even consider the possibility that someone who may be 'courting the vamp' Is setting themselves for heartache I do feel compelled to remind them that unlike LA or Dallas or some other place where suburbs have as much appeal as a UStoreIt, the Chicago region is blessed to have dozens of comely 'burbs that will win one's heart and not break it...

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

I think the issue within the last couple of pages is that there is a disconnect of emotion from analytics.

Chet is merely using data and crunching numbers to show what he means to say.

However, that little thing called emotion tends to skew people's opinions and desires.

Dollar for dollar, you'd have to agree that Chicago is probably a huge hassle and money pit when it comes to living here. I know it is.

However, when you add in all the 'perceived' value (and each user perceives in their own way) the reasons for staying in Chicago make so much more sense.

I don't even own property, and I will still gladly live here despite:

high sales taxes, high fees (city sticker, etc..), high gasoline costs, issues related to living in an urban area (such as parking 3 blocks away from home), safety issues (I have been burglarized and had my car attempted to be broken into).

And guess what? I'll still pay $300K for a small 2 BR condo if I had to. There is so much 'value' to me with regards to living here.

All Chet is saying is that, when one disaggregates 'perceived value' from actual value for services rendered by property tax and home price (infrastructure, schools), there a lot of places that have way more bang for the buck versus Chicago.

[MannheimMadman]

Either you need to lay off the sauce, or you have an iPhone/iPad. It's making some funny words out of what you intend to say.

Originally Posted by chet everett

Lord knows I would hwve never made a dime taking buyers that wanted a Burr Ridge address through homes in Oak Brook or vice verse.

Of course I am not trying to convince someone already "married" to living inside the city to "get a divorce", but when folks fail to even consider the possibility that someone who may be 'courting the vamp' Is setting themselves for heartache I do feel compelled to remind them that unlike LA or Dallas or some other place where suburbs have as much appeal as a UStoreIt, the Chicago region is blessed to have dozens of comely 'burbs that will win one's heart and not break it...

[tomcho]

The title of this thread is Family Friendly CHICAGO neighborhoods, to even mention Barrington is absurd. It seems to me every thread that mentions Chicago, family and schools, Chet makes his appearance and attempts to convince people how bad Chicago is. There are hundreds of thousands of families that live in Chicago and are very happy. If Chet wants to sing the praises of the suburbs there is a forum to do just that.

[tomcho]

Originally Posted by chet everett

The NW side is not particulary convenient to any of the traditional attractions of Chicago's core, similar to Barrington...

12 miles is similar to 40 miles? Are you serious?