thinking about movin to Indiana
 

Could anyone share some nice kid friendly area in northwest indiana to live. It should be in prosimity of the 65 interstate.I would also like a great school district & afforable housing with aleast 1 acre. My family lives in Chicago, o'hare area. I live in Maryland now. Thanks -Peggy

Hi Peggy Sue!

I think you'll get some good responses if you define "affordable".

West Lafayette. It is a college town, and so has more things going on than other towns of comparabile size. 1 hour to Indy, 2 hours to Chicago (but maybe you need to be further north?)

Ft. Wayne is a wonderful town. It is large enough for all the amenities, shows, shoppinWe have lots of relatives there. Check out the areas around it...it is growing, growing. The north side is more pricey, maybe west towards Columbia City would fit your budget and life style.

cap is certainly right about West Lafayette. We lived there for 16 yrs and just have recently moved back home. We loved it. One hour to Indy and 2 hrs to Chicago. Housing is affordable. You can get a 2000 sq ft home, 3 bed, 2baths for 125,000 to 150,000 (ballpark) With Purdue, there is culture, diversity and sports. You have two top notch hospitals and people are friendly. It's worth a visit to see if you can see yourself living there.

Chesterton or Valparaiso would be my suggestion, although they aren't nearly as affordable now as they were when my parents moved there from Chicago 14 years ago.

You don't see a post about moving to Indiana every day. :-)

You say the family in Chicago is around O'Hare. Do you really want Indiana? The traffic can be (almost always is) horrific trying to get diagonally across Chicago from Indiana to O'Hare. In the last 15 years that I've gone to Chicago it seems like there is always construction on 80/94. You can cut across into Illinois and try to take one of the other interstates north but you'll always hit traffic in Chicago. Same with taking the Skyway tollway.

I'm not partial to the "Region." That's the northwest corner of the state in the central time zone. It's part of "Chicagoland" and is very crowded with suburban sprawl in the corner. It does get rural south of Crown Point. It also has some unsavory (and infamous?) cities like Gary and Hammond. You might as well be in Chicago's sprawl if you're going to live there.

I don't like South Bend though it has passenger rail service into Chicago. It's no where near I-65 either. I spent a winter there and had more than I wanted of lake effect snow. Several times it was snowing heavily when I left South Bend. An hour south at Plymouth it was blue skies and sunshine.

How about Lafayette/West Lafayette? Twin cities on the Wabash River, it's a nice fairly affordable area as long as you don't want to live within walking distance of Purdue University. I don't keep up with schools, but last I knew West Lafayette schools were pretty good. With a major university in town (Purdue has around 35,000 students) you get a lot more art, culture, concerts, Big 10 sports and things to do then you ordinarily would with a town that size. Amtrak has sparse and inconveniently timed service to Chicago. This may be farther from Chicago then you want.

PeggySue, I'd recommend looking at what's available in the areas in the Chesterton or Valpariso school districts but out further to the east or southeast where it is still more rural. As Vittrad pointed out, these areas are much less affordable than they used to be, mainly because of people moving in from Illinois to save on property taxes.

West Lafayette is a good area to consider, but that's still quite a long way to drive to get to the O'Hare area.

You'll have a hard time finding acre size lots in NW Indiana (Gary, Hammond, E. Chicago, Munster, Highland, Merrillville), you might find some down in the area south of Crown Point. If you want further info, I have friends who live down that way I could ask about the school systems, etc.

Although Hammond would not fit your criteria, I have to take issue with the blanket generalization of it as unsavoury, it may have industry and it does have some rough spots but there are some very nice sections to it, in particular around Wolf/George Lake and along Forest Avenue where there are some really nice homes/mansions. And I'm sure there are some folks in the Miller section of Gary that would also take issue.

I'm wondering though if you shouldn't be looking more towards living west or north of O'Hare where you are not fighting city traffic to get to see your family.

Go for Valpo schools. Some of the Townships surrounding Valpo have acre lots and you could pay tuition for the kids.

I'm wondering why it has to be Indiana? If you're looking to be on the edge of Chicagoland, try Kenosha County Wisconsin. It'll be a lot easier to get to O'Hare from there than from Indiana, even though traffic will still be bad at least during rush hour. There's a lot of new subdivisons going up, and I think they will fit most peoples criteria of being affordable. And you have the benefit of Metra service to Chicago and you can also take advantage of culture and recreation in Milwaukee.

When you mention your family is near ORD does that mean that you have family there and you want to be close to them....or does it mean you will be driving back and forth on a daily basis to ord from indiana?

Outside of South Bend, IN is Granger. It is exploding in growth (lots of recently purchased farm-land, turned subdivisions) but you can still get an acre (or larger) lots. The school system is one of the best in the state, it is close to shopping/restaurants, close to chicago, and is very close to southwest michigan and all of the surrounding lakes.

It is an easy drive to ord, though as others mentioned here, the traffic can be chaotic during rush hour - any other time it's really not that bad - very quick and easy. The South Shore (train) runs directly to chicago from the south bend airport.

flamingomonkey brings up a good point, any further south than East Chicago or Hammond and there is no train service into Chicago. South Shore/NICTD runs parallel to Lake Michigan out to South Bend. Driving into the city from Hammond is anywhere from 30-60 minutes, I can get out to O'Hare in less than an hour on a good day but on a bad day you can double that. Crown Point would add an extra 30 minutes and that might be conservative.

LaPorte? Not far from Mich. City, where you can catch the South Shore Line to Chicago.

Well, you are talking about an area that I know LOTS about. Some of the things said are true, yet are also IMHO misleading as they are what the area tends to market, instead of what really IS.

I've had a home on a lake in Walkerton IN (Koontz Lake) and know all the towns around Starke and St. Joseph counties well. I know Merriville and I know Valpo. Valpo would definitely be my pick for IN. Plymouth is also a very nice town with some pluses and some size. These are kid friendly, but I've never seen ANY area where kids are SMOKING more than here, as are their parents. Just my observation- I've seen 7 year olds smoking in Dyer and in the country towns off Rt. 30 and by 65 in IN.

I call it the last bastion of smoke.

And you do know that there are still signs up on farms that want the US out of the United Nations. And the KKK had its Northern center here. Just being truthful.

What size town do you want to live in?

And, IN has some negatives that MI doesn't besides that IN is much more conservative politically. And it might not be a negative to you, but although taxes are cheaper in IN- services are far, far less as well- and at every level (library/road maintenance/schools etc. etc.) With the possible exception of the Hoosier Helpers on the expressways, to be fair.

If you want REAL value and GREAT school system- you asked this at exactly the right time.

Because Kalamazoo, Michigan has just (as of last Friday) declared the Kalamazoo Promise. Which means every single person/student in the Kalamazoo public school system is guaranteed FREE TUITION for college to any Michigan State school or university (and there are MANY) for four years TOTAL after attending grammar/h.s. This has occurred because 7 very rich people have donated and mandated this legacy during the last month. And this will be for many, many, many years. It is pro-rated if you come into the school system at later grade levels. But freshman year of high school seems to be still 90% future tuition FREE. And it has award winning schools with small class size.

We also have something called "millage" which means that second home people (like me) are super-supporting your MI school systems.

They are trying to bring near perfect conditions into the lake areas around Kalamazoo. This is a beautiful, beautiful area- surrounded by lakes. It is little, if any, harder to get to Chicago from MI than it is from IN in actuality- boy, do I know this.

My guess is that if you are going to go home to Chicago with kids etc. in tow that you aren't going to be taking trains anyway. BUT there is a train to Kalamazoo.

Kalamazoo has some of the most historic (very old train station- shopping "mall" before it there was a word mall). It would remind you of some places and placements as would more common in Europe- very person/human friendly. Wine country, berry country, lakes, skiing etc. etc. etc. And extremely kid and family friendly. All of Friday night tv is H.S. football. ALL of it and it is called the "Friday Frenzy". The land is not totally flat and breathtaking looking- think Tuscan hills filled with vineyards with ski lifts.

PEGGYSUE, check out some of the small MI towns if Kalamazoo doesn't do it for you. What you get for your tax levels is FAR, FAR more than you do in IN.

Also, if you are considering only the areas VERY near to Chesteron etc. - consider Three Oaks MI.

This is just North of that border IN area; it has all the perks of MI, has the BEST grammar school rating in that part of the state, has 20 minute access to Lake MI beaches (if not less) and looks to me like a town on the way up after a small depression in business- as things went from rural to "other".

You aren't in New Buffalo with the rich, but you aren't in a trailer park by a mile either. There's housing of every kind that seems affordable. I've been SORELY tempted to pick up a Victorian and redo it. Me Bad- I would have to borrow way too much money.

After Maryland, you will think you have won the lotto and some of these places are just on the borderline times of shooting through the ceiling for appreciation in pricing.

If I had kids to raise over again, I would pick one of these wine country 4 or 5 acre houses OR one with less land but with lakefront position. South edges of Kalamazoo would be my guess for the future. Culture and all better there.

So much to encompass depending on your druthers and income method/work location. But I do want to add one thing and that is that cfntmpn is spot on about Granger. Most of my Fish Lake Marcellus MI neighbors are second home owners with their first home in Granger.

Granger is modern, has good schools, forward thinking about investing for the future of the kids etc. But these same Granger natives seem to think that MI has all the beauty and fun- that's why they make the drive all the time. But I must say that all the neighbors from Granger seem to making a GOOD living.

When I had a home in IN, I used to spend the most time in Valpo than anywhere else. And some of the time in Plymouth as they have a TERRIFIC Blueberrry Festival over Labor Day weekend and the shopping was ok there.
Both would fit what you seem to be looking for. From these you can take RT 30 into Chicagoland instead of 80-90 or the more Northerly 80-94.


BUT, for just the visuals and the schools Valpo is the best in IN, I think. I'm not so sure you could get a buy there with the acre you want anymore though. It's probably hit close to its peak pricing already.

And you should also know that Valpo and that section just South and SE of Lake Michigan gets more rain and snow than you would believe.

Good towns to consider if you want lake, water, acres plus beautiful vistas and would consider outside of IN
are: Kalamazoo, Dowagiac, Lawton, Three Rivers.

My town is very small (Marcellus)and it is surrounded by 15 lakes within the 20 square miles around it. Cassopolis further south which might do too. It is a place where you could get water/acres and probably the most for your $$$, but there are depressed pockets/ areas near Cassopolis. You will find diversity in churches and in race throughout all of these areas in MI, if that is an issue.

Hey JJ5, between hanging out in Valpo and Sox games, I am sure we must have met at least 100 times!!

Seriously the "lake effect snow" is a negative variable for IN. It is unbelievable how much snow they get. If you don't like snow, want Indiana, want great schools, consider Munster. More suburban than rural, but twice as close to Chicago and the roads (and driveways) are not an issue there.

wsoxrebel, I wish you could make the GTG in Chicago on Dec.10! I love Valpo- love the college- love the college library- all that glass! I just like the whole vibe of the town itself the best in IN. Munster is good too, and you are right. I liked it every time I went through, but not often in recent years.

And EVERY time I would drive home from Koontz Lake/Walkerton IN down Rt. 30 during the late '80's and all through the early '90's and somewhere around Valpo and surrounds it would be raining. We had a joke about it within the family. The lake effect snow in winter for IN does have to be a factor in the very Northern parts. That's why I did like Plymouth and further "in" and I think it is cheaper value for housing $$$, as well. Also there you are not that far from Shipshewanna etc. and the Amish which is so much a plus in my eyes.

I know you are farther away now, wsoxrebel, but you're still a home boy or girl.

JJ5, I'm definitely a girl!

Indytravel and everybody else in Indiana, hope you have not been affected by the tornadoes and heavy storms.
By the way, Indy, do you still count hotel trash cans on your travels? Thanks to you, every time we check into a hotel, among the first things I notice in the room are the trash cans.