Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

So Mr. A is interviewing as I am typing this.  We drove into Chicago last night.  We are staying in a suburb that comes highly recommended  by nearly everyone when we mention the possibility of moving to Chicago.

There are definitely some significant pros and cons to this suburb.  Please bear with me as I record my general impressions because I am assuming Mr. A will need to interview again and it will be at least several weeks before we know if he gets an offer. 

Pros: Close to the city, good commute on trains, could get rid of one car, good schools, yuppie amenities (like coffee shops, farmer’s market, downtown shops, restaurants, beautiful library,walkability in some parts of town.)

On the surface, it seems like an OK fit.  We really want all of the above things.  But then there are the cons:

Cons: Fake “diversity”, no Asians, very disappointing and few parks.

Bah.  I was enjoying our morning walking around Suburb #1.  The parks were kind of austere with pretty lame play equipment, but I could let that slide.  Then, at the very pretty library I ambushed an Asian mom I heard mentioning kindergarten and asked her for the low-down on the town for Asians.

This suburb is very hyped for its’ diversity.  As a matter of fact, on NPR the other day, there was an entire segment dedicated to this town and the diversity here.  That sounded promising.

According to the Asian mom, there were only 6 Asian kids at her child’s elementary school last year.  “In each grade?” I asked.  No, 6 kids TOTAL.   She said that all the “diversity” was a reference to the white/African American mix.  She also said that a significant percentage of the Asian kids are adopted Asian kids.  While that is all well and good, we would like to have the opportunity for our kids to know Asian kids with Asian parents too.

We talked for quite a while and she gave me a lot of really good information.  We knew the Asian numbers in this suburb were low percentage-wise, but for some reason I though the number of kids in the schools was higher.  (I have no idea what I read on the internet that gave me that impresson.  Maybe I was confusing it with another suburb.)  She also said that there is no real Asian community to speak of around here.  That most Mandarin speakers live in one part of town (where we don’t want to go because of the distance and the crappy public transit options that would significantly diminish the amount of time Mr. A would spend with the girls.)

Mr. A also noticed several articles about the suburb’s “diversity” in the newspaper.  It left both of us feeling a little creeped out.  Like maybe they doth protest too much.  Just walking/driving around, it felt like the suburb is a little segregated.  Maybe more than a little. 

Also, at the public library, here were only two computers for use by people who don’t have library cards (i.e. Mr. A).  Mr. A had to wait over a half hour to use those computers even though there were about 30 available computers in the Children’s section alone (which means I am assuming they have a lot of other adult computers somewhere for card holders).    The only reason I can imagine for this disparity is to limit access the homeless people who can’t get a library card or the riff raff from other areas.

It may be that we decide that the pros outweigh the cons.  In some ways it would be pretty easy to move here and live our comfortable yuppy lifestyle.  We have agreed we need to limit the disruptions to our lifestyle because moving will be hard enough already.  But if we do choose to live here, we can’t claim we don’t know the choice we are making about having other Asians around. 

And yes, if we chose this suburb, it would make me a big, fat  hypocrit.  (It wouldn’t be the first time.)  It would also mean we would have to do a LOT of work to replicate the connections we already have at home. 

In the morning, we are going to go spend some time in another suburb that is also on our list.  I already know it has some cons, but we need to get some sources of comparison.

*Oh, before I forget:  when I was walking back to the hotel we passed a guy who was bent over at a 90 degree angle with his hand on a tree.  I thought he was vomitting.  But as we got closer, it was apparent that he was uh, communing with the tree or something.  He was just standing there, hand on the tree, eyes closed, communing.  For at least 3-4 minutes.  Weird.