[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by benp

Sure you can drive them. You can show them a candy store on the internet, and buy candy from Amazon, too. But it is not the same having the ability to independently walk or bike without their parents, every single day.

It's not just a "quaint idea" but something that people do here every day.

Is it valuable or important to their upbringing? All I can tell you is that it was important to me growing up, and it was important for my own kids. Their first years growing up were in the suburbs, but their later years at home were in the city. They became more independent, they became less fearful of cities and people, they needed much much less taxi service from Mom & Dad, and they were very grateful for the experience of living in the city compared to their old home in the suburbs.

My "ideology" is not the driver of my thoughts differentiating city versus suburban living, but my experience is. I always preferred to live close to city amenities, but I lived in the suburbs for almost 20 years to be closer to work. For a short time I was not allowed to drive due to medical issues, and I realized how trapped I felt, how little there was to do, and how little was accessible, without having a car. After that experience I moved to Inner Loop of Houston (traded a longer drive for better daily living), which was much much better even though not yet a "walker's paradise," and later I moved back to Buffalo where I can easily give up my car if I choose to.

You are also lucky that you are living in a town like Libertyville, which at least has a "downtown" associated with it, and looks like a smaller version of our neighborhood business strip. Many, if not most, suburbs in different parts of the country have no such "Main Street" areas. These types of areas did not exist in suburban Houston.

None of this is really related to "City" vs. "Suburbs", but more so development catered to the automobile vs. pedestrians. I think 100% of the people on this forum, and majority of Americans would agree that pedestrian scaled development is better, but that can be found in spades throughout Chicago, DC, NYC, LA suburbs.