Cord

iTrader: (2)

Chicago is a really nice town to visit. You might be in for a bit of a shock comming from Florida. We have something up here called 'winter' and a 'wind chill'. Remember in Florida when the Orange groves would freeze over? Makes the news for days. Well up here, we have 5 months of that. The cost of living is also significantly greater in Chicago than most other cities. You'll need to count some of that raise for increased expenses. Chicago can also be a real beotch for traffic. If you need to work any where close to the loop, don't plan on driving.

pb

Dave,
Like Bob Z I have been a southsider all of my life. Most people that work downtown utilize public transportation(Metra trains). Driving downtown is brutal no matter where you are coming from. You will miss your 20 minute commute. Mine is a min. 1hr each way.

Housing costs in the north and northwest suburbs are higher than the south and southwest. The western suburbs seem to be in between. Be prepared for high property taxes no matter where you go. For a nicer home you are in the ball park of 350,000-450,000 s, sw, and w, 500,000-600,000 nw. I am a building/fire inspector for a large nw suburb, so i see what these houses are going for. New homes in the 800,000-1,000,000 range is not uncommon at all. Taxes can be 5,000 -15,000 per year and even higher.

IMO, they can keep Chicago. Trying to convince the wife to move west.

What is your line of work?

Good Luck
Paul

Ms PatriYacht

If it was me they would have to pay me a heck of a lot more to move to Chicago from FL, even though Chicago is one of my favorite cities.
-Very expensive
-Lots and Lots of traffic
-Very cold, and very windy
-Not that boater friendly, all the marinas are owned by the city and there are very few places to take your boat to for dinner or a drink.
-Boating season is really June-Sept.
-Most of the offshores are kept on the border in Indiana or on the WI/IL border. A lot are kept on hoists.
The good points are the city is clean, safe, and lots to do, good sports teams, the people are friendly, the lake is huge, MI and WI shoreline have great harbor towns to visit, and the best part is you will immediately have a large group of friends when you join the Chicago Powerboat Club

fund razor

If you trailer your boat through Chicago... take it from me....

DO NOT tow your boat over the Skyway Bridge.

formula31

Figure 4 hrs a day driving to and from work. I cant even stand to drive around Chicago. I had this same opportunity about 20 years ago and decided not too mostly because of the traffic and how far away I had to live without spending every penny on housing. I dont know how the Chicago guys can stand it, I quess you can get used to anything.

Monty

I grew up in Florida (Daytona), went to Univ of Miami and lived in Miami for about 5 years until I moved up to Chicago after marrying a girl from here.

As a boater, the 4 month season seems short and during January and February it is brutal here, but overall I like it. Lake Michigan is alot of fun to boat on and there is a very active boating scene here. I do most of my boating along the Indiana/Michigan border area and the beaches, water condition/clarity can rival almost any beach in Florida. As a parent, it's also nice to not have to worry about some of the hazards that accompany the ocean.

I do live in the NW suburbs during the week and they are generally pretty quite, clean and safe. We spend all of our weekends during the late spring-mid fall at our lake house on Lake Michigan. The job market here is pretty good, generally more stable than other parts of the country but some of the manufacturing jobs have been outsourced oversees, but that is common everywhere now. While the cost of living is relatively high, there are plenty more places where it's worse. I have alot of friends that still live in Florida, in addition to my parents, and many of them, especially the one's in South Florida pay more for less than we do up here. from my experience, the pay is alot better up here for most tyopes of work as well.

With all that said, if I could make the salary I make up here down in Florida, I'd be back in a minute...

Downtown42

Just move to WI...All ILL folks drive to the great North Woods every chance they can.

If the money was real good, I'd move to Chi town. Lot's of mula there...