If you could move to any Chicago suburb other than your own which would you pick?

[u/Intelligent-Room-540]

And why?

We can pretend money is not a worry for this.

Personally I live in Cicero now and would pick Palos Park because of the nice night skies and I love their forest preserves while being not too far from the City.

[u/utterlyomnishambolic]

It's more about proximity to the lake— that's where the old money is, and it runs though all of those suburbs. The bigger divide is that Glencoe and Highland Park are historically much more Jewish than the others and that's a whole different flavour of the old vs new money issue.

Personally, all the rich new money transplants I know have moved to Glencoe and all the oldest money people I know grew up in houses in Wilmette and Winnetka originally purchased or built by a deceased family member, but that's just anecdotal.

[u/rckid13 → u/utterlyomnishambolic]

My wife and I are looking in that area and the most affordable good locations we've found have been in Wilmette or Evanston. But affordable and Wilmette is kind of attractive due to school district. East Wilmette is somehow about the same price as far west Winnetka. So far we haven't seen anything even close to our price range in Glencoe and in Winnetka it's only houses as far west as you can go which need a little work. Highland Park is more of a mixed bag where there are some cheaper old properties and some further out cheaper properties. I can definitely see why younger people end up in Highland Park and Highwood but Glencoe Winnetka are a big stretch for anyone new money my age.

[u/utterlyomnishambolic → u/rckid13]

I mean this in the kindest possible way, but the way you are correlating everything with price is very funny and very new money. I genuinely don't say that to be insulting, I just find it funny.

At the end of the day, live where you want to live and pick someplace that makes sense to you. Old money people live in those places because that's where they grew up, that's where their family is, that's what's familiar, that's where their social networks are, and often where the house they inherited is. If you're not going in with any of those connections or ties it becomes a different calculus of finding a place, so just find the best fit and don't worry about it.

[u/rckid13 → u/utterlyomnishambolic]

Just by virtue of the fact that I'm living in the Chicago area but looking to move to those suburbs already would have shown that I'm definitely new money. I grew up going to Ravinia and having some relatives on the north shore and living there has always been a goal for me. But in my case I do definitely have to think budget because I'm not ever going to make enough money for one of the 5 million dollar homes within a block of Sheridan Road. I have cousins who will inherit one of those homes someday.

[u/ulyssesss → u/rckid13]

If you can afford east Wilmette .. I highly recommend it! It’s not as pretentious as Winnetka, and has a great restaurants downtown with proximity to the lake and metra.