Spaulding wrote:
Our property tax bill went up about a thousand dollars. 80% will go to the school districts that have done an all around terrible job especially in the last 15 months. Can't wait to leave, I won't miss much. Family but that's about it.
I used to live in the one-school district south of 75th which feeds DGS. School was shit but I didn't have kids so I didn't care. The property taxes have been pretty flat in the last four years, but when I moved to NC they were 60% of what I was paying in Illinois, for a more expensive house. I saved $200/month in property taxes, which helped offset a larger mortgage.
I do miss going into the city. Not the commute, but working downtown (along/inside of Wacker). My dad owned a business there for 35 years, my mom worked as an executive assistant at a bank there for about 10, I worked there for 17 plus another 10 as a teenager/graduate student working for my dad. Being able to take an hour between meetings and walk across the Loop and back is something I definitely miss.
I also miss the ethnic neighborhoods, although with gentrification some of them were already starting to fade in the last fifteen years.
I'm still in the suburbs west of 294 for 5-6 days a month visiting my father. When he is gone, I will have no desire to return to them other than to visit friends and extended family, and getting lunch at Katy's in Westmont as long as the old guy there is making the noodles. I lived in DuPage County for 22 years, that was enough.