[ChristinaM]

I haven't had clients in Chicago but I would be very surprised if that weren't the case. I've done remote dev work (mostly iOS) for clients in Canada, Portland, and Minneapolis that paid better than $100/hr without working hard to increase rates. The one client who made an initial hourly offer started at $100/hr and I negotiated up from there with little resistance.

Remote gigs are a real possibility, even at $100/hr if you're a decent communicator and can get things done. I've had several clients within a day's drive that I've never met because it just wasn't necessary. It does help to be in a convenient time zone. Most clients I'll see once or twice a year.

I've talked to several local companies looking for freelance mobile web devs for interesting projects lately. They all want solo independent devs since (1) they're small and built their companies on reputation and (2) they've had better experiences working one-on-one than with big firms in the past. They all have clients or partners that are large companies.

Don't expect to be able to bill 40 hours a week or have no expenses though.

If I were looking to make $10k quick, I'd cold call local web/marketing agencies and propose having them offer iOS app development to their clients. A lot of them are thinking about it but don't know how to get started.