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Originally Posted by ChromePony
I'm moving to Chicago in a couple of months and am trying to figure out where to live. I lived in Evanston for a while a number of years back so I am somewhat familiar with Chicago, but mostly scene on the Northside. FWIW I'm late 20s and and will be moving with my fiance, we'd like to find a 2 bed in the low $2000 range, though that's a bit flexible depending on how nice the place is.
I will be commuting about 20 miles out 55-W for work and we're trying to figure how to best balance the commute with living in a cool neighborhood. I think the most obvious options for convenience would be either the South or West Loop, but I don't know that much these areas since they really weren't that happening last time I lived in the area. My impression is that West Loop has a good high end restaurant scene and lots of nice new apartments and converted lofts, but is it enough of a self contained neighborhood that we wouldn't be constantly running out to Lincoln Park/Lakeview/Wicker Park to find fun stuff to do?
From what I've heard, and a little that I've seen, I think I would like Wicker Park but that would probably require dealing with 94 everyday, which I'd rather avoid. LP/LV/Old Town/River North could also be an option depending on how bad Lakeshore traffic gets (I've been told its not too bad), but they would still add to the daily commute, though a bit less as we get closer to the Loop. If we live walking distance to Union Station I could also try to take the Metra out the burbs, leave my car there, and drive ~5 miles to work, but its unclear how possible or convenient that would be.
Anyway, any thoughts? I'm pretty excited to come back and actually experience everything about Chicago that I missed out on when I was young and broke.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChromePony
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I have a friend who lives in River North and I stayed with him a lot when coming up for interviews. Its a fun area to visit but I'm not sure how much I would want to live there, since its a little lacking on neighborhood character. It also starts getting expensive pretty quickly, especially since we may need two parking spots. The low 2k figure is just a ballpark, we could probably afford a bit more, but would of course prefer not to. Do you guys have any concept of what the Fulton River area is like, a quick look suggests that we could probably find a 2 bed with 1 parking spot in pretty nice building for ~$2500. Being able to walk to Union could potentially save the cost of one downtown parking spot, but again, I'm not sure how well that would work.
I'm from Oregon originally and while I do tend to like a more laid back nightlife, I wouldn't call myself your typical Portland hipster (whatever that means). I would say a night out in my book would involve a good beer bar, some reasonably priced interesting/unique/ethnic food and the occasional upscale cocktail. Obviously we aren't just limited to the immediate area we live in, but it would be nice to have some stuff nearby that we can walk to after work. My fiance is pretty set on being in an area that is very safe and walkable, and we're not sure how well West Loop fits this since it seems to quiet down a decent amount at night, and might be a bit isolated. We have similar issues with South Loop even though it would probably be the most convenient for me.
I had kind of discounted WP/UV due to the commute, but if getting to 55 isn't too bad I may look into them a bit more, since they seem like areas we that we would enjoy. I just remember some awful traffic experiences coming in from O'Hare around rush hour.
I know that everyone has been anxiously waiting for my follow up and this seems like a good time to share how things worked out for us.
We looked at a number of places in West Loop, South Loop and River North. We would have liked to consider the Old Town area as well, but it just wasn't worth it with the extra commute. We ended up with a pretty large (1250 sq ft) 2 bed / 2 bath in Printer's Row, which is just a few blocks south of the loop. So far its been great, if you want to live in a modern, doorman building you're probably going to get the best value in South Loop. Most of the other places we looked at in the same price range were significantly smaller. That type of building is much harder to find past River North as you start to get at a lot more brownstones and older highrises.
There are good options in West Loop as well, but after visiting a lot of the area still seemed a bit underdeveloped and other than the restaurant scene on Randolph, there isn't a ton of stuff going on at night. It does have decent access to river north though and definitely still worth considering.
Similarly, there's not a ton of action in our immediate neighborhood, but there's a handful of bars, sushi, Thai, Indian, tacos, sandwiches, coffee etc. all withing walking distance, more than enough to satisfy our needs for a quick bite or beer after work. The key is that we are walking distance to the Loop and both the Red and the Blue lines, which is really nice if we want go up to Lakeview or Wicker Park or something. I like the River North nightlife, but its not somewhere we'll be hitting up multiple times a week or anything. When we do want to go its an easy 10 minute L ride or $8 cab.
For us at least, the combination of commutes on 55 and the Pink line definitely limited our options somewhat. But so far we're really happy with where we ended up, at this stage in life I'm more than happy to trade being right in the heart of all the action for nicer, bigger place and a shorter commute, while still having pretty easy access to anywhere else we want to go.