Quote:
Originally Posted by Handro
Agreed. I do like Elmhurst but the actual walkable downtown is considerably smaller than some of those you listed. It does have some nice, quintessential American suburban leafy residential streets--but so does Geneva, Park Ridge, Naperville, etc.
I think the tiers look like this:
1. Oak Park/Evanston
2. Elmhursts (walkable downtown, a least a moderate selection of local businesses, interesting housing stock)
3. Schaumburgs (extremely auto-centric, cookie cuttetr strip malls, housing stock made entirely of subdivisions built between 1965-2005)
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I like this analysis but I think you're missing a tier.
1. Dense, Vibrant Suburbs: Evanston, Oak Park (I recently moved to Evanston so I've got to list it as #1 now..I still love Oak Park though)
2. Well developed, stereotypical pre-war suburban downtowns oriented around a train station: Elmhurst, LaGrange, Glen Ellyn, Park Ridge, Highland Park, Naperville etc..
3. Missing Tier: Transit oriented but punching below their weight, generally only with sparse pre-war bones: Glenview, Northbrook, Deerfield. I'm sure there's more examples here but that's the region of the metro I know best. Btw, I personally think these towns have great potential over the next several decades if they can pull their Nimby heads out of their collective butts because they generally still have some nice developable parcels close to the metra. These places aren't great right now, but they're a hell of a lot better than Schaumburg.
4. Pure suburban hellhole: Schaumburg, Riverwoods, Oak Brook, Lincolnshire, Vernon Hills
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