German family will move to the US - where to live?

[paddock_laker]

Originally Posted by Bideshi

Sie sprechen gut.

I decided to be informal, so what?

But, more importantly, Flo, what kind of environment do you want to live in? The most urban environment in the area would be Kenosha, although it is not a cosmopolitan city by any means, it is a city of about 100,000 people that is still pretty safe. There is a large Italian-American presence in the area; most of the restaurants and bars in Uptown are Italian-owned. To your south you have Pleasant Prairie, a suburban town anchored by large stretches of industry, a clean coal plant, and a huge outdoor outlet mall. The village gets a lot of tax revenue from all of this, so its services are very nice. They have the RecPlex (very large community fitness center run by the village) as well as the IcePlex (ice skating area of the same ilk) and a heated lake. (They say it's not heated by the power plant, but the lake is 83 Fahrenheit, you tell me.) To your west you have some spread-out smaller towns, like Paddock Lake, Twin Lakes, Silver Lake, Bristol, Union Grove, Kansasville, Lake Geneva (beautiful touristy town), and Burlington (a large town of about 15,000). Also to your west you have rural areas with vast stretches of farmland and greenery: Paris, Brighton, a lot of Wheatland. Further to your south you have Zion, IL, a medium income town in high-tax Lake County, Illinois. There is a fair amount of crime due to a lot of Section 8 government-subsidized housing. To your north you have a fairly rural area with a lot of new development due to its proximity to Kenosha and I-94, Somers. Further to your north, you have Racine, a similar city to Kenosha, with maybe a little more crime, and worse schools. You also have its suburbs, Caledonia, Sturtevant, Mt. Pleasant, Wind Point, and a few more. These are all very nice little towns, close to everything, but they suffer by virtue of their being in Racine's public school district. So there you go!