Move
 

I would recommend moving. Making new friends is an important life skill and people don't get better at it by not doing it. The better response to them having difficulty making friends is to help them and/or teach them how to do it. Make your own friends with parents of kids their age and socialize. Meet neighbors, church, school, sports, and interest groups. When you find other parents with kids of the same age, enlist their help. After we moved, my wife joined a pilot wives group; as a bonus, those friends have husbands that like to talk about airplanes. Teach them how to make friends. Kids aren't born knowing how to do it.

I will be your friend if you want to be NYC based. As your friend, I would recommend not being NYC based.

Good luck and welcome!

OK, that was funny...!!

Some things are best kept to ourselves!

Like everyone already said, DTW MSP and ATL are all very easy commutes from ORD. DTW seems to be the most popular, will probably give you the best seniority of the three and has way better trips compared to ATL. DTW's a commuters dream with lots of cheap commuter hotels and larger crew room/sleep room etc..

The worst part of the commute is ORD itself, T5 is a pain and theres not really any decently priced parking options.