Location, Location, Location: Where To Move When You Could Go Anywhere

by Laura Chanoux

After Thanksgiving in 2012, my husband Eric and I drove a U-Haul from the East Coast to our new Chicago apartment, which we’d picked after a three-day sprint with four different realty companies and at least twenty-four apartment tours. As we navigated down our new street, I started to panic. What the hell did we know about Chicago? What were we going to do here?

Within the hour, our friend Doug showed up to help us unpack. Oh right, I thought. We have a bunch of friends here. This will be okay.

We moved to Chicago after traveling overseas for a few reasons: we each had friends here, we both like living in the Midwest, and it was a large enough city that we figured I could find a job. I’m from the Boston area and it felt too soon to move back. Neither of us wanted to try to afford New York and much farther west or south felt too far away from our families.

A little over two years later, many of our friends have moved on to other places and we’ve started considering our next home. Eric is a freelance writer and I work in higher education. We aren’t necessarily tied to a specific location. We’ve started asking each other, “Where next?”

Though my mom’s side of the family was based in Chicago for many years, my aunts and uncles are scattered all over the country. Most of them lived overseas at one point or another. Growing up, I absorbed the idea that living somewhere other than my hometown was a necessary part of adulthood. However, I always thought that school and work would be what took me out of the Boston area, not just preference. It feels strange to move without some kind of practical driving force; yet in looking ahead at the next decades of my life, I want to spend my time in a place I enjoy.

As Eric and I examine our criteria for where we move next, I’ve started asking friends and family why they live where they do now. My college roommates Anita and Amol cited each other as the reason they moved to Boston, along with an externship (Anita) and business school (Amol). My sister Becky moved to Philadelphia for graduate school and now loves the city and raves about its public transit. Her boyfriend Patrick moved to Philadelphia for a medical residency and stayed for work, but would consider moving somewhere with warmer weather.

I had always assumed that my parents moved for work reasons only. My dad went to college and graduate school in Boston and got a job in the city after graduation. He moved for work to New York and then to Chicago, where he met my mom. A year after they got married, they moved back to Boston to follow my dad’s job. My mom was a teacher and found work once they bought a house and settled in.

My parents recently explained that family had a lot more to do with their decisions than work. My dad had taken the job in Chicago because the company was based in Boston, where his daughters Kate and Val lived. The company gave him a continued east coast connection, and eventually he transferred to its Massachusetts office to be closer to Kate and Val. Thirty-seven years later, my parents are starting to consider where to live once they retire.

In contrast to family connections, several people brought up their location as something of their own, separate from their past homes. When I was in college at Michigan, my high school friend Terri was studying at Northwestern. We bonded over living in the Midwest while most of our friends were on the east coast. When we graduated, Terri took a job in Chicago. She described the city as the place where she really grew up. She lived on her own for the first time, made new friends, changed jobs, and built a life independent from her family and our childhood hometown.

My older brother Tim discussed location in terms of independence and growth as well. Tim went to Syracuse and moved back to Boston after graduation. He wanted to move to New York or San Francisco to try something new, but felt he needed to figure out his career first. He and his then-girlfriend, now-wife Kate both lived in the Boston area and once they started working, the timing for both of them to move somewhere else together never quite worked out.

In possibly the longest email I have ever received from Tim, he explained, “I think coming to Boston in my mind was going to be living in Lexington and doing the same things and seeing the same people as I always had, but being part of the Somerville community I met new people, tried new restaurants … Living in Somerville was anything but the same old Boston I had grown up in and it was something new that I had made my own and could share with Mom and Dad and friends that came to visit.”

Tim also pointed out that after a few years, he had started building a life in Boston. He made friends through work and sports whom it would be difficult to leave. He says his proximity to interesting people keeps him in Boston. Each new neighborhood he and Kate live gives them more to explore. Looking back at the ten years he’s been in Boston, Tim wrote, “There are different ways you can experience the same thing and if you look hard enough, you can find new experiences anywhere.”

When I asked if there were other cities where Tim and Kate might want to live, he responded, “A certain NFL QB who went to a certain Midwestern school when asked which Super Bowl ring was his favorite replied, ‘The next one.’ That’s how I’ve grown to think about things and I’d like to think that I will go to find the next cool experience whether it is in a new city or just a new neighborhood.”

Our next location decision will be a result of a mix of factors: work availability, city size, local friends or friends who might visit, and a sense of independence. Eric and I will be moving to carve out our own space, to have our own adventures, and to experience somewhere new together.

If we do decide to move back to Boston at some point, I won’t worry about feeling like it won’t be a new experience. Tim Chanoux and Tom Brady have reassured me.

This story is part of our Real Estate Month series.

Laura Chanoux works in higher education in Chicago and loves to apartment hunt in cities where she doesn’t live yet.

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