Moving to Chicago?

Next week I have my third interview with a marketing firm in downtown Chicago (just off the Magnificent Mile). My lease in Milwaukee is ending at the end of July anyway, so if they make me a good offer I'm likely just going to bite the bullet and make the move south. I've lived in SE WI nearly my entire life and I'm ready for a change of pace, if nothing else.

I have some good friends who live in Logan Square, which seems to be the reasonably affordable/pretty safe/cool neighborhood to be in right now, although rent is rising. I don't need a whole lot as far as living space or square footage goes; I would really like to bring my Miata, though. I would plan on taking the train to work and back, having the car solely for pleasure driving/leaving the city if possible.

Anyone familiar with Chicago and have any general advice, tips or tricks for someone like me considering the move? Is it impossible to be a car guy down there? Anything in particular I should know?

Get ready to pay out your ass for everything. Chicago taxes DRINKING WATER! Working on projects is difficult and costly. I would really really suggest looking a burb, preferably not on in Cook County, that's served by METRA. That's my opinion anyway.

Lots of young folk love living in the city, but it is not very car friendly. Parking, city stickers/fees, people who mess up your stuff all tend to be issues. If you want the city life, that's cool. I'd think about renting a garage or storage space in the burbs for the car though - actually I had thought a car storage/club biz would do well around chicago.

Sorry.

Expensive, but not impossible to keep a car in the city. Bunch of my cousins do it. What is harder than keeping the car, is driving the thing on the rubble that they call roads. Hard to keep any kind of enthusiast car down there unless it has decent ground clearance.

My fiance and I are "dreaming" about moving back home, and we're looking at the northwest side (Jefferson Park, Norridge, etc.), Oak Park, Riverwoods, Evanston, and Elmwood Park area's as somewhere in teh middle of a suburb and city living.

Great area for young people. Nightlife is great. City sticker and plates and parking is nuts. I'm old and like the quiet suburbs. DO IT!

The times I've driven in Chicago I hated it. It seemed to be a very bicycle and pedestrian oriented city...

I use to live in Niles and then in the city for a bit. Don't drive a car you like. It will get beat up, hit, nicked, bumped, scraped, and look trashed in no time flat if you street park it.

Living in the city is not an option if you have more than one car. It's hard enough to get parking and pay all of the fees on one car let alone 2.

I found that the train was a much better commuting option when I worked downtown. (312 S. Michigan ave) I would hope on the closest yellow and red line trains from Niles and the Brown train from my place in the city.

Gas tax was expensive as well.

I liked living in the close suburbs and felt that Evanston is a great place to live and if I was still there and not living in Texas now, I would be in that part of town. You can take the Purple line to the red line to get to work.

Overall, the city is great though. It's got an awesome diversity and so many different things to do and enjoy. It was hard to select just one thing for a weekend. I would summer there if I could snowbird but that is not an option....Boo

Salt, rust, crap weather, taxes, corruption, flatness, no corners, what's not to like?

My inlaws live in the south loop. It seems to be reasonably priced for the city. The building they live in has it's own parking garage and there are several folks there with Astons, Maseratis, Porsches, etc that are usually covered up with a car cover. There are several buildings like that down there along with many tow houses that have their own garages.

Swmbo and I were just there for the weekend.

We paid over $300 over the course of the weekend for parking, and the roads were bad enough that I feared for the life of our Cherokee.

To think... I almost considered taking the Miata.

My sister lives in Lincoln Square, and lived in Ravenswood in Chicago. If you're looking for the city experience, don't live in the burbs. Rent is not too bad in those areas, especially if you can find with and deal with a room mate.

Cars? My sister and her boyfriend have one between the two, and have had two at some point. They park on the street in their neighborhood for free. And they rarely if ever use the car. Only for long trips like coming to Michigan for a weekend. You can certainly have a car in the city, but it will be very difficult to work on it anywhere, and it will see little use.

Chicago city streets are in pretty good shape if you ask me. But I drive in Detroit.

Swank Force One wrote: Swmbo and I were just there for the weekend. We paid over $300 over the course of the weekend for parking, and the roads were bad enough that I feared for the life of our Cherokee. To think... I almost considered taking the Miata.

If you actually live there, parking is much less.

On a similar note, heading there today to snag some wheels. Don't want to drive downtown, but want a recommendation for a delicious sandwich. Learn me.

Parking is easy if you live in a protected neighborhood or a less popular neighborhood. You just had to pay for the neighborhood sticker annually. After that, you are good to go. Most buildings will have some sort of parking as well but there is typically an additional cost for that.

It's a town where typically you will take the train or a cab though. Very much like new york in that sense. Parking in the club districts or downtown is meant to be a generous revenue maker.

I can tell you there is a big difference living in the burbs vs. the city. I would do the city again in a heart beat. I had a maxima when I lived there and it was a tank. Took a lot of abuse and looked like it afterwards. I just re-read and saw miata.....Wouldn't recommend that in the city unless it's the PRHT version. That is just too tempting for a guy with a knife if you are in the city.

My wife and I met while living in Chicago. We go back often. If we hadn't gotten spoiled by Texas winters, I would not think twice about moving back now.

Lots of the nicer buildings have their own parking, I used to know some people who ran thirty or so high rises and every one of them had a garage under it. I never lived in the city, always in the burbs and drove in or took the train.

beans wrote: On a similar note, heading there today to snag some wheels. Don't want to drive downtown, but want a recommendation for a delicious sandwich. Learn me.

Where are you heading specifically? And what kind of sandwich?

Whatever, the answer is Portillos.

Make sure to get some bug spray.

The roads are not very good. But traffic is bad so you won't be hitting the holes at a high rate of speed.

mtn wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Swmbo and I were just there for the weekend. We paid over $300 over the course of the weekend for parking, and the roads were bad enough that I feared for the life of our Cherokee. To think... I almost considered taking the Miata.

If you actually live there, parking is much less.

I'm sure it is. Especially if you don't actually have to drive anywhere and just leave your car in your designated parking spot 99.99% of the time.

In reply to Swank Force One:

That's the thing. Other than driving out of the city or to a friend's place, where I would park on the street, pretty much any errand or commuting would be taken care of on the L train. Driving to work in Chicago is not for the thrifty, nor the faint of heart...

So, if I'm selling the Miata, what fun cars have a lot of suspension travel?

SlickDizzy wrote: In reply to Swank Force One: That's the thing. Other than driving out of the city or to a friend's place, where I would park on the street, pretty much any errand or commuting would be taken care of on the L train. Driving to work in Chicago is not for the thrifty, nor the faint of heart... So, if I'm selling the Miata, what fun cars have a lot of suspension travel?

I'd probably build a PreRunner a la Trophy Truck if i were to live there.

Something like a Bowler Wildcat would be nice.

Chicago is a great city to be young and single in. Do it.

In reply to Swank Force One:

Yep, pretty much why we Amtracked up there and Greyhounded back.....both of which are something I will never do again.

Took the kids to the Museum of Science and Industry last summer which was a great experience, I highly recommend that to everyone. It was hot and the Burban's A/C was struggling to keep up, the outside temp (according to said Burban) was 90+. We hopped on a main-ish drag that ran roughly North and South and headed toward Foster Beach. The temperature dropped very quickly as we neared Lake Michigan and there was a dense fog at the water front. By the time we parked it was an indicated 65 degrees.

We walked on the beach and put our feet in the surf, well except me, I kept my shoes on so I just dipped a hand into it. That water was cold!!! Besides us there was only one other person there playing fetch with his dog.

Overall it was pretty neat but driving there was maddening, being in a Suburban probably didn't help in that regard. I'm not cut out for city life like that.

We still haven't made it to Shedd Aquarium or the Field Museum so at least one return trip is inevitable.

You know after living there a while though you just get into the groove of driving and most of the drivers are pretty easy to predict.

1. All taxi's will run the lights. Even with cops around, they will run it so just expect it.
2. Because of the amount of cars, you can pick out the I've got to be there faster than everyone else guys and just avoid them.
3. If the freeways are not clogged, that means hit the gas. If you are on 294 and haven't gotten up to at least 80+ MPH that week then it's been a bad week.
4. LSD will have tourists on it all weekend in the summer so best to avoid it whenever possible.
5. There will always be a the worse pothole right when you don't expect it.

I'll never forget, I was riding my Bike to go see my dad and I was coming up 55 and I looked in my rear view mirror and just saw the back of a map in the girl's windshield behind me. I just dropped the throttle and got as far away from her as possible as fast as possible.

I MUCH prefer driving in Chicago over Austin. I'll take organized chaos over purely random everyday.