Living in Chicago
 

I've got the opportunity to live there for the next 3 months doing some training. That might turn into a "permanent" situation.

Anyone have any opinions? Pros, cons, stories, whatever.

The town I'll be working in is Libertyville. It's pretty far north of the city.

It's my kind of town.

Never been there, actually.

But you must learn this song:

Late last night when we were all in bed
Old lady 'Leary lit a lantern in the shed
And when the cow kicked it over she winked her eye and said
It'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.
Fire! Fire! Fire!

Mr Zicato lives there.....

He can tell you were to get some good pizza.

Cold and miserable in the winters, but if you can survive that Chicago is great! I lived in Des Plaines for a couple of years, but I grew up in Northwest Indiana and Chicago was my family's goto place for fun. I love the Lake.

What do you mean by miserable? Wet and windy and perpetually gray?

I live in a moderate part of Montana. We have weeks on end of worse than -10 degree temps in the winter. Ice and snow. But there is almost always a couple of partly sunny days each month.

The best pizza we have in Helena is from Costco... Chicago's food is a big draw.

Yup, mostly. And the cold is a chilling-to-the bone damp type of cold. And the gray starts in November with lots of rain. The sun does come out sometimes though, and its really nice when it does. You will, however, miss that Montana sky...the Midwest rarely gets that crystal clear. BUT! The spring, summer and fall are fantastic after having to deal with such a winter. Summer in Chicago is a blast. You will never lack something to do.

It does get pretty cold in the winter and can get hot and muggy in the summertime. However, we often get breaks of lower humidity in the summer, which I appreciate.

Chicago has a higher cost of living than most places, so plan accordingly.

Lots to do here.

We like it where we are because our suburb is like living in a small town - sidewalks, lots of stuff in walking/biking distance.

What would you like to know specifically?

40 miles north of the city?

Am I going to be in a shit-storm of traffic pain commuting from somewhere like Waukeegan to Libertyville?

How is public transportation? I see Metra rail. Is it good*?

It looks like there are toll roads everywhere. Do they have something like EZ-Pass that works at all of them?

I know there's lots of city stuff to do. How about outdoors stuff like hiking?

The cost of living space is high, but nowhere near as high as some other places I've thought about jumping off to (SF, NYC).

I could google some of this, and will later. I'm just stream of consciousing it out here, for now.

I guess I'm also curious about what people like about living there. In Portland people have lists of things they like. Bike-friendly, food cart culture, tolerance, Powell's, friendliness etc. And dislike about it. Number of homeless people, hipsters, etc.

I see Portland as counter-culture. DC as conformist (there are a fair share of counters but they are definitely marginal). NYC as microcosm.

What is Chicago (to you, to others)? I don't have a good picture for what Chicago is about as a city.

* For the USA.

As for traffic, yes there are toll roads and yes there is an EZ Pass type deal. I'm unfamiliar with the traffic up north, but I do know the the traffic from the south and west is now even more horrendous than when I used to drive it years ago.

I think the metra rail is OK, but I've only used it as a tourist.

There are many, many Starbucks there. many.

I think that far north, you shouldn't have any trouble commuting from Waukegan to Libertyville. But I'm not sure why you would. I think Libertyville is supposed to be pretty nice.

I like Metra a lot. I commute from the western suburbs in to downtown. If I time it just right, I can make it from door to door in ~40 minutes. Plus I can read or play games on the train. But again if you're working in Libertyville, you won't need to commute very far.

The one thing you are probably not going to like is the highway system. It's crowded most of the time.

I think you named the only two places that have a higher cost of living than Chicago. I remember my first introduction to Chicago being mostly sticker shock at the home prices.

Chicago has some great food. Pizza, Italian Beef, hot dogs, etc. We have some of the best bread. Lots of ethnic food here.

Depends on what part of Chicagoland you're in, of course, but a lot of Chicago has a neighborhood feel to it. We never lived in the norther suburbs so I don't know how different that will be.

In closer to the city, there are a lot of preserves. Land that is left pretty natural excepting the bike/jogging paths. You might like those. And from where you're going to be up north, you won't have to go very far to be out in the woods anyway.

One thing - it's a big city spread out over a lot of area. I had to get used to that.

It's a mix of a wide range of cultures and economic levels. The nice part of that is that you can find just the neighborhood you want here.

You're going to be pretty far from the city proper in Libertyville or Waukegan. So you're not going to get the big-city life out there. Dunno if that's what you're looking for.

Mostly people here are really nice, but you do run into the high-income 'privileged' folks as well.

Hope some of that gives you a picture.

Hebe's Big Field Trip is to Chicago this year.