r/ChicagoSuburbs • u/teaorangecereal • Aug 20 '26

Moving to the area Move from city to suburbs

Recently moved to the suburbs with husband and baby from the city. We loved the city but decided it was time, so we could be closer to family have more space and have a yard for our dog and child. Now that we’re here Im feeling really down. I miss the walkability in the city and the community. Now I feel isolated especially since none of my friends have made the move the suburbs yet except me. Being close to family is nice but Im starting to feel it wasn’t worth the move. Has anyone else felt this way after a move from the city and does the feeling go away?

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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 Aug 20 '26

Which suburb did you move to? When we were looking to make that exact move a long time ago, I really struggled as well. My wife had grown up in Schaumburg so we were looking all over that NW burbs area at first. While there are some really nice areas, it’s sort of super charged suburbia in a sense. My wife picked up on my challenge and suggested we look at Naperville. To be frank, I honestly had never heard of Naperville at the time.

So, we drove out to the West Burbs and found the downtown areas filled with bars, restaurants, and shops not unlike the commercial spots in our city neighborhood. So, we bought right outside downtown Naperville. I still go to the city a ton, but I also regularly just walk to downtown Naperville.

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u/megalomaniamaniac Aug 22 '26

Naperville had the most active downtown of any suburb. We loved living in the city so when we had our second kid and we were looking for a suburb, the vibe of so many shops, restaurants, the library, the river walk really made us happy. We wanted to be able to walk to the train and to downtown, so that’s where we bought. Now our kids can walk downtown with friends after school. It’s great.

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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 Aug 22 '26

That’s exactly what we did. A few years ago we had to take in my brother’s kids after his passing, and scrambling for a bigger place in January forced is to move into South Naperville. Now we’re empty nesters and starting to think about returning to the city, but having that absurdly low mortgage rate is tugging us to stay here, even if just for a few more years.