Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, where in Wisconsin do you live?! I grew up near Milwaukee (Elm Grove) and am a UW-Madison grad. I haven't found many Wisconsin transplants here. There are things about WI I miss and things I absolutely do not. We are in Cleveland Park -- two kids, ages 6 and 3 -- and generally really like it. Georgetown has always felt very touristy to me and not super neighborhood-y or kid friendly. Also it's not zoned for the "preferred" middle school (which may or may not be a big deal to you).

Most people in DC are transplants, so it doesn't have the insular vibe that Wisconsin often does, but that's a double edged sword as it also means that the area is pretty transient, people can be a bit too focused on their careers, and there's definitely a competitive vibe. It can take awhile to find "your people" but you can do it!

OP here - Very cool! We are in New Berlin. Three kids...6, 4 and 2. We aren't originally from Wisconsin, but have lived in various areas of Chicago and Milwaukee for the past seven years. Thanks for the info on Georgetown and can totally understand the tourist thing! Yes, the schools are important for us, but also conscious of hopefully not getting into this "pressure cooker" thing.

DP. This seems weird to me. You probably know this, but at your budget, you could live in an amazing house on the lake in Milwaukee, Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, etc. We moved from DC to that area and it’s been a wonderful change and a breath of fresh air. People are so much friendlier than they are in DC and the quality of life far exceeds that in DC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

+1 to all of this. If you can afford to live in Dupont/Logan/Shaw, the walkable/bikeable quality f life is fantastic.

I agree with this suggestion BUT don’t entirely understand why OP needs to relocate to a completely different part of the country. Surely there are urban walkable neighborhoods in Chicago? Why uproot your family and move again? It takes years to put down roots. OP mentions she has moved countless times with is a red flag to me. These types are often looking for the move to solve problems that it never does.

OP - sounds like you dislike the suburbs and driving around. I get it. Simply move to a neighborhood nearby where you have greater walkability. You can avoid relocating to a different part of the US.

OP here - Agree and Chicago is a great city, however, we don't like Chicago Public Schools (maybe Lincoln Park is OK) or the astronomical property taxes. Completely understand your "red flag" comment. I'm sick of moving, however, in the past, we made quick decisions to relocate without fully researching. Our kids remained in the same daycare throughout, so their world really wasn't impacted too heavily. I think the reason for our moving is that we keep trying to force the Midwest lifestyle upon ourselves, but there is something missing in our view. In the Chicago area, we lived in Lake County and we barely made it into the city. In Wisconsin, we live in the suburbs. There is nothing wrong with our house and subdevelopment. Lots of kids, good enough schools, etc., but we aren't really Packers/Brewers/Bucks fans, hunters, fisherman, campers, etc., so we really haven't found our "groove" here. There is a lot of great stuff about this state, but, we struggle to adopt the hobbies that most of the residents enjoy. Maybe we are just lacking knowledge on our state, but a more urban living environment and warmer weather are enticing to us. Really appreciate your post as it pushes me to keep thinking and researching where we do want to "put down roots". We only want to make one more move, if at all, as it gets tough for relationship building (kids and adults)

OP, do you like Evanston? In DC, that would be comparable to Chevy Chase DC.

Anonymous wrote:OP, have you envisioned what it would be like to ride the subway with your family's groceries? Or, you can drive to grocery store, park on level 3, ride elevator, then take cart back into elevator, go to your car to unload, take cart back to elevator, back into store, then ride back down the elevator to your parking level. . (you get the idea?)

By contrast, if you live near Tysons Corner, you can get a haircut, go to the mall, 3 other stores (not mall), grab something to eat all in 2 hours. Convenience is priceless. You couldn't pay me to move into DC limits. Not everything is "walkable" unless you happen to live right next to your usual anchor stores, such as grocery.

Plus there's the whole school problem, getting into the "right" charters, etc.

Screw it. I'd rather live in a close in suburb and take a short ride into DC to look at museums or a ball game. In a good school district. Like McLean if you can afford it. Or Vienna or Falls Church City. The subway goes there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

+1 to all of this. If you can afford to live in Dupont/Logan/Shaw, the walkable/bikeable quality f life is fantastic.

I agree with this suggestion BUT don’t entirely understand why OP needs to relocate to a completely different part of the country. Surely there are urban walkable neighborhoods in Chicago? Why uproot your family and move again? It takes years to put down roots. OP mentions she has moved countless times with is a red flag to me. These types are often looking for the move to solve problems that it never does.

OP - sounds like you dislike the suburbs and driving around. I get it. Simply move to a neighborhood nearby where you have greater walkability. You can avoid relocating to a different part of the US.

OP here - Agree and Chicago is a great city, however, we don't like Chicago Public Schools (maybe Lincoln Park is OK) or the astronomical property taxes. Completely understand your "red flag" comment. I'm sick of moving, however, in the past, we made quick decisions to relocate without fully researching. Our kids remained in the same daycare throughout, so their world really wasn't impacted too heavily. I think the reason for our moving is that we keep trying to force the Midwest lifestyle upon ourselves, but there is something missing in our view. In the Chicago area, we lived in Lake County and we barely made it into the city. In Wisconsin, we live in the suburbs. There is nothing wrong with our house and subdevelopment. Lots of kids, good enough schools, etc., but we aren't really Packers/Brewers/Bucks fans, hunters, fisherman, campers, etc., so we really haven't found our "groove" here. There is a lot of great stuff about this state, but, we struggle to adopt the hobbies that most of the residents enjoy. Maybe we are just lacking knowledge on our state, but a more urban living environment and warmer weather are enticing to us. Really appreciate your post as it pushes me to keep thinking and researching where we do want to "put down roots". We only want to make one more move, if at all, as it gets tough for relationship building (kids and adults)

OP, you have just outed yourself. If you wrote off the entire Chicago public school system and are appalled by high taxes you're not gonna like DC any better. In fact, me thinks you're all talk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

OP here - Thank you for your post and yes, you've given me something to think about. Yes, technically we can live anywhere, however, DH frequently travels to DC and I'm the "single mom" for most of the week. The idea is that if we lived in DC, DH could see his kids more often, attend school functions, etc. I've always loved the buzz of cities/urban environments, however, I'm very far from a Real Housewives-type person. The pressure cooker/mean girls clubs are not something I'm looking for. It seems those situations/personalities absolutely do exist, but there are alternatives as well. We participated in the DC School Lottery last year and we were awarded Langley Elementary, which seemed to be an interesting school that we would have investigated further, but we ended up not moving. Our housing budget is high because I feel it has to be high due to the market. For us, it's a large amount of money and we could get a McMansion in Wisconsin for that price tag, but we enjoy getting outside of our house and "unplugging" the kids and DH so we can make memories and traditions. My concern is that in Wisco, the long winters allow for excessive amounts of YouTube watching and Nintendo Switch playing haha.

OP, you're not moving here. You're just bored.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

+1 to all of this. If you can afford to live in Dupont/Logan/Shaw, the walkable/bikeable quality f life is fantastic.

I agree with this suggestion BUT don’t entirely understand why OP needs to relocate to a completely different part of the country. Surely there are urban walkable neighborhoods in Chicago? Why uproot your family and move again? It takes years to put down roots. OP mentions she has moved countless times with is a red flag to me. These types are often looking for the move to solve problems that it never does.

OP - sounds like you dislike the suburbs and driving around. I get it. Simply move to a neighborhood nearby where you have greater walkability. You can avoid relocating to a different part of the US.

OP here - Agree and Chicago is a great city, however, we don't like Chicago Public Schools (maybe Lincoln Park is OK) or the astronomical property taxes. Completely understand your "red flag" comment. I'm sick of moving, however, in the past, we made quick decisions to relocate without fully researching. Our kids remained in the same daycare throughout, so their world really wasn't impacted too heavily. I think the reason for our moving is that we keep trying to force the Midwest lifestyle upon ourselves, but there is something missing in our view. In the Chicago area, we lived in Lake County and we barely made it into the city. In Wisconsin, we live in the suburbs. There is nothing wrong with our house and subdevelopment. Lots of kids, good enough schools, etc., but we aren't really Packers/Brewers/Bucks fans, hunters, fisherman, campers, etc., so we really haven't found our "groove" here. There is a lot of great stuff about this state, but, we struggle to adopt the hobbies that most of the residents enjoy. Maybe we are just lacking knowledge on our state, but a more urban living environment and warmer weather are enticing to us. Really appreciate your post as it pushes me to keep thinking and researching where we do want to "put down roots". We only want to make one more move, if at all, as it gets tough for relationship building (kids and adults)

Most people in the Milwaukee area are not hunters or fisherman. LOL.

But they're all beer drinking football fans

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

OP here - Thank you for your post and yes, you've given me something to think about. Yes, technically we can live anywhere, however, DH frequently travels to DC and I'm the "single mom" for most of the week. The idea is that if we lived in DC, DH could see his kids more often, attend school functions, etc. I've always loved the buzz of cities/urban environments, however, I'm very far from a Real Housewives-type person. The pressure cooker/mean girls clubs are not something I'm looking for. It seems those situations/personalities absolutely do exist, but there are alternatives as well. We participated in the DC School Lottery last year and we were awarded Langley Elementary, which seemed to be an interesting school that we would have investigated further, but we ended up not moving. Our housing budget is high because I feel it has to be high due to the market. For us, it's a large amount of money and we could get a McMansion in Wisconsin for that price tag, but we enjoy getting outside of our house and "unplugging" the kids and DH so we can make memories and traditions. My concern is that in Wisco, the long winters allow for excessive amounts of YouTube watching and Nintendo Switch playing haha.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, have you envisioned what it would be like to ride the subway with your family's groceries? Or, you can drive to grocery store, park on level 3, ride elevator, then take cart back into elevator, go to your car to unload, take cart back to elevator, back into store, then ride back down the elevator to your parking level. . (you get the idea?)

By contrast, if you live near Tysons Corner, you can get a haircut, go to the mall, 3 other stores (not mall), grab something to eat all in 2 hours. Convenience is priceless. You couldn't pay me to move into DC limits. Not everything is "walkable" unless you happen to live right next to your usual anchor stores, such as grocery.

Plus there's the whole school problem, getting into the "right" charters, etc.

Screw it. I'd rather live in a close in suburb and take a short ride into DC to look at museums or a ball game. In a good school district. Like McLean if you can afford it. Or Vienna or Falls Church City. The subway goes there.

Every single place that you have just described is awful. Also, you can have groceries delivered.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

+1 to all of this. If you can afford to live in Dupont/Logan/Shaw, the walkable/bikeable quality f life is fantastic.

I agree with this suggestion BUT don’t entirely understand why OP needs to relocate to a completely different part of the country. Surely there are urban walkable neighborhoods in Chicago? Why uproot your family and move again? It takes years to put down roots. OP mentions she has moved countless times with is a red flag to me. These types are often looking for the move to solve problems that it never does.

OP - sounds like you dislike the suburbs and driving around. I get it. Simply move to a neighborhood nearby where you have greater walkability. You can avoid relocating to a different part of the US.

OP here - Agree and Chicago is a great city, however, we don't like Chicago Public Schools (maybe Lincoln Park is OK) or the astronomical property taxes. Completely understand your "red flag" comment. I'm sick of moving, however, in the past, we made quick decisions to relocate without fully researching. Our kids remained in the same daycare throughout, so their world really wasn't impacted too heavily. I think the reason for our moving is that we keep trying to force the Midwest lifestyle upon ourselves, but there is something missing in our view. In the Chicago area, we lived in Lake County and we barely made it into the city. In Wisconsin, we live in the suburbs. There is nothing wrong with our house and subdevelopment. Lots of kids, good enough schools, etc., but we aren't really Packers/Brewers/Bucks fans, hunters, fisherman, campers, etc., so we really haven't found our "groove" here. There is a lot of great stuff about this state, but, we struggle to adopt the hobbies that most of the residents enjoy. Maybe we are just lacking knowledge on our state, but a more urban living environment and warmer weather are enticing to us. Really appreciate your post as it pushes me to keep thinking and researching where we do want to "put down roots". We only want to make one more move, if at all, as it gets tough for relationship building (kids and adults)

Most people in the Milwaukee area are not hunters or fisherman. LOL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

+1 to all of this. If you can afford to live in Dupont/Logan/Shaw, the walkable/bikeable quality f life is fantastic.

I agree with this suggestion BUT don’t entirely understand why OP needs to relocate to a completely different part of the country. Surely there are urban walkable neighborhoods in Chicago? Why uproot your family and move again? It takes years to put down roots. OP mentions she has moved countless times with is a red flag to me. These types are often looking for the move to solve problems that it never does.

OP - sounds like you dislike the suburbs and driving around. I get it. Simply move to a neighborhood nearby where you have greater walkability. You can avoid relocating to a different part of the US.

OP here - Agree and Chicago is a great city, however, we don't like Chicago Public Schools (maybe Lincoln Park is OK) or the astronomical property taxes. Completely understand your "red flag" comment. I'm sick of moving, however, in the past, we made quick decisions to relocate without fully researching. Our kids remained in the same daycare throughout, so their world really wasn't impacted too heavily. I think the reason for our moving is that we keep trying to force the Midwest lifestyle upon ourselves, but there is something missing in our view. In the Chicago area, we lived in Lake County and we barely made it into the city. In Wisconsin, we live in the suburbs. There is nothing wrong with our house and subdevelopment. Lots of kids, good enough schools, etc., but we aren't really Packers/Brewers/Bucks fans, hunters, fisherman, campers, etc., so we really haven't found our "groove" here. There is a lot of great stuff about this state, but, we struggle to adopt the hobbies that most of the residents enjoy. Maybe we are just lacking knowledge on our state, but a more urban living environment and warmer weather are enticing to us. Really appreciate your post as it pushes me to keep thinking and researching where we do want to "put down roots". We only want to make one more move, if at all, as it gets tough for relationship building (kids and adults)