On drives from the Midwest to locations further east, we often pass a community with an interesting name: SNPJ, Pennsylvania. This is an unusual name. No vowels. An acronym? A misprint? Wikipedia suggests this is an unusual place with just 15 residents:
S.N.P.J. stands for “Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota” (Slovene National Benefit Society), a fraternal society and financial co-operative based in North Fayette, Pennsylvania. The society applied to have their 500-acre (200 ha) recreation center in western Pennsylvania designated as a separate municipality in 1977. The S.N.P.J. borough was created so that the society could, among other things, get its own liquor license. North Beaver Township, the municipality in which the center was originally located, restricted the sale of alcohol on Sundays (blue law)…
It is more of a recreation complex than a community, and has 60 rental cabins, 115 mobile home slots, and an artificial lake. It is open to the public as a summertime resort and facility for bingo, weddings, and dances. Members of the society get a discount on the events.
Wikipedia offers few additional details but there is enough here to hint at an interesting history: a fraternal group for a white ethnic group, efforts to bypass liquor laws, providing recreational opportunities, and very few permanent residents.
This leads to the post for tomorrow: how many communities across the United States have unique histories worth knowing? How many communities are like SNPJ and does it matter if there are just a few or a lot?
According to Know Your Meme, treating Ohio as a joke started in 2016 after the meme “Ohio vs the world” went viral on Tumblr. User @screenshotsofdespair posted a photo of a digital marquee in an unknown city that read, “Ohio will be eliminated.”
At the time, the joke was Ohio was secretly plotting to take over the world, hence the photo calling for its silencing. By the time 2020 rolled around, jokes about the state had evolved…
Now, most memes about the state are saying “so Ohio” or “only in Ohio” about something bizarre or random. It’s usually tied to images, GIFs or videos that highlight something ridiculous. The memes imply that Ohio is a place where strange things happen. Ironically, it’s actually been named one of the “most normal” states in the U.S.
Describing the internet trend, Know Your Meme explains how the memes have essentially re-branded Ohio. Now it is “an American middle place, existing as a capitalist wasteland of chaos and mayhem, akin to creepypastas, lore and randomness, becoming an imagined epitome of American signifiers such as Breezewood, Pennsylvania.”
The Ohio memes have become so near-constant that they’ve taken on a life of their own. To date, the hashtag #Ohio has 33 billion views on TikTok, while #OnlyInOhio has about three billion. In some cases, people have made memes about the memes.
And then there could be places and communities that are known but cannot embody all of America. Could New York City all about America or does its status as the leading global city and its particular history and character mean that it cannot embody all of the United States? (Perhaps normal American cities are Cleveland.)
Oak Brook is a diverse community, welcoming to everyone except criminals. We’re open for business!
A little bit more on each of the three pieces of diversity, welcomes, and business activity.
Regarding diversity, the U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts say the community of just over 8,000 residents is 61.8% white, 30.3% Asian, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, and 0.6% Black or African American. The median household income is $146,409, the median housing value of owner-occupied units is over $801,000, and the poverty rate is 4.9%.
Many suburbs say they are welcoming and few, if any, would say they welcome criminals.
The community has plenty of business activity as it is home to Oakbrook Center and numerous offices along I-88.
Is this formula – diversity + welcoming + business – the secret to suburban community success? Or, is this a viewpoint from suburbs with certain features and character?
A new large plot of land may soon be available in the middle of Lake County, Illinois. What should go there? Here is an early idea:
The family that owns the Chicago Blackhawks wants to turn more than 700 acres of farmland it owns near Mundelein into a housing, commercial and industrial development, village officials confirmed.
If the Wirtz family’s vision becomes reality, the land would be annexed into Mundelein and become the largest development by acreage in Lake County, Village Administrator Eric Guenther said.
“This is a big deal,” Guenther said. “(It) could prove to be a very extraordinary development for Mundelein, the Wirtz family and Lake County as a whole.”…
Guenther declined to detail the family’s specific plans for the land. They will be unveiled to the public at the village board’s Dec. 12 meeting.
Given what I have seen regarding suburban development, here are some of the steps to come and the common responses from involved actors:
The landowners will bring a plan to the municipality that maximizes or at least includes a lot of profit through developing the land.
The Village of Mundelein will receive the proposal and work on it through elected and appointed officials plus professional staff.
There will be public hearings regarding the property and proposed plans.
Community residents will chime in with a variety of concerns, including regarding traffic and noise. The local school district and other actors will wonder how new development will affect local services and amenities. The village will want to consider the tax base on how the tax revenues add up from such a property. Some actor(s) will propose keeping the property or part of it as green space.
There will be some negotiations between the developers and the community. This could go relatively quick or slowly, depending on the changes asked for and the vision of the developers. They could happen behind the scenes or be more visible to the public.
Roughly 1-2 years from now a plan will be in place and development can start.
Each of these steps could proceed differently with the potential for plans to move more quickly or more slowly. There is no guarantee that the proposed project will go forward.
However, given the size of this parcel, there will be a lot of interest from everyone about what happens with this land and how this might affect Mundelein – whether it is the community’s character, revenues, or land use – for decades to comes.
A “bridesmaid suburb” is a second-choice postcode and could become a strategic buying trend as ballooning interest rates bite into borrowing capacity…
“Buyers will still have to consider alternatives or the bridesmaid suburbs to their first preference, possibly not because of price but because of diminished borrowing capacity.
”Bridesmaid suburbs are adjacent to higher-profile neighbouring suburbs. They cost less to buy into but share many similarities to the first-pick suburb next door, including access to public transport routes, schools and major shopping hubs…
“A bridesmaid suburb can still allow you to secure a lifestyle with comparable amenities and appeal, and only a short drive down the road.”
While this is used in Australia- a quick Google search suggests this term has been around there for several years – I wonder if it might also apply to suburbs in the United States. Are there many homeowners who would have preferred to live in the most desirable suburb but could not afford it and so settled in nearby communities? There are several assumptions at work here:
Many people want to live in the most desirable suburbs. If supply and demand is the only factor at work, more people wanting to live in desirable suburbs drives up home prices so much that there is not enough housing. Additionally, my own sense of American suburbs is that some of the most desirable and exclusive suburbs also intentionally limit their housing supply to help maintain their character and status. Are there such suburbs that always stand out above any other location in the region and where most people would want to live?
Suburban homeowners want to max out their borrowing capacity and get the most they can – a more expensive home – through their mortgage. People can borrow up to a certain point decided by lenders, but how many go all the way to the maximum allowed?
The exact community in which you live matters less than the clusters of suburban communities you can access. It is less about a particular zip code and more about a cluster of adjacent zip codes. Suburbia offers driving access to a lot of communities so perhaps you do not have to live in a particular place to enjoy the benefits. At the same time, communities that appear similar on certain factors can be quite different in terms of character and everyday experiences.
“Probably the strongest work ethic of laborers is the folks in the Midwest,” the Houston-based founder of SparrowHawk Real Estate Strategists said, definitely not rhyming. “They’re just, I don’t know what they put in the water there, but they’re hard workers. And so you’ve got a good labor force.”…
Illinois Manufacturing Association president and CEO Mark Denzler recalls a businesswoman who recently moved her small manufacturing operations of about 50-70 workers to Mississippi with the goal of saving on costs. She regrets the decision, he said…
“When I’m around the warehouse workers in the Midwest — Chicago and all these other Midwestern cities — they’re different than the folks in the southeast and the folks in the West Coast. They just have a different work ethic,” he said…
“It would be really hard. I’d be suspicious of anybody who said they can do it,” Bruno said. “But there is this strong experience with work in the Midwest that it’s part of your development. It’s connected to your health and well-being.”
Contrary to the final paragraph above, I bet this could be measured. But, what would it show? And how would workers in Boston or New York City or Atlanta or San Francisco respond to the argument that Chicago workers have a stronger work ethic? Or, within the Midwest and Rust Belt, how about workers in Milwaukee, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh?
This is part of a bigger narrative about Chicago. it is part of its character. Even as it is a global city with an important finance sector and many professional and white-collar workers, it imagines itself as a blue-collar city relying on manufacturing. The loss of manufacturing jobs in the last sixty years hit Chicago hard, as it did many cities, yet the narrative continues.
I would be interested in a more recent study that looks at how residents of the Chicago area think about the purported work ethic. Does the narrative hold across locations, groups, and occupations? Does the idea of “the city that works” extend throughout the region and different kinds of workers?
In recent weeks, the Bolger family, which owns the Gladstone Ridge horse farm on Leask Lane in Wheaton, asked area homebuilders for bids to develop the property. And on Tuesday, the Forest Preserve District’s board voted unanimously to authorize district staff to pursue negotiations with the Bolger family to buy the horse farm.
While no purchase price has yet been determined, some recently developed subdivisions in the immediate vicinity have sold for between $275,000 and close to $500,000 an acre, suggesting that the Bolger family could expect to reap between about $10 million and $17 million for the land from a developer…
“We have not expressed an interest in selling the property to the Forest Preserve (District) and hope you are not of a mind to condemn our property,” she told commissioners. “Please value the rights of our private property and practice open communication.” Forest preserve districts use condemnation to purchase land through eminent domain…
Forest Preserve District officials haven’t yet said publicly if they would consider using condemnation powers to acquire the farm now if they are unable to reach an agreement with the Bolger family. And Wheaton officials said that they have not yet been approached by a developer seeking to develop the Bolgers’ land.
This is different than noting decades ago that the last farms were disappearing from DuPage County. At that point, the farms disappeared to new subdivisions that continued the process of mass suburbanization. Redeveloping a horse farm or an office park or another large property now is different: it does not occur under conditions of mass construction, there are neighbors to the property who likely have concerns, and municipalities and other government agencies think carefully about what the next use for a property could be. The character of the nearby neighborhoods and communities are already established yet a sizable redevelopment could alter future experiences. In other words, when larger parcels of land are infrequent, the stakes for getting this right may be even higher.
Rather, changes in home price growth, the supply of homes for sale and upticks in rock-bottom interest rates are more likely to stabilize the market after an unpredictable 2021, they said. That likely won’t mean an end to competition or high prices — and it doesn’t bode well for first-time homebuyers — but the market could ease up compared with 2021…
In the nine-county Chicago metro area, the median home sale price from January to November was $300,000, up nearly 12% over the same months in 2020, according to the Illinois Association of Realtors…
Prices are likely to rise next year, but won’t continue the exponential growth of 2021, said Daniel McMillen, head of the Stuart Handler Department of Real Estate at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Without an influx of new residents to the area or big increases in incomes, that growth will become unsustainable, he said…
Homebuyers are continuing to look for amenities like home offices and workout areas, Melbourne said. Kitchens are a priority. Condo-buyers are looking for bigger units, rather than one-bedrooms.
The pressure from COVID-19 moves will hopefully subside. Then, the more regular patterns in Chicago area real estate might take over again. There are at least several interrelated factors:
Uneven development within the region where some neighborhoods and suburbs will be popular and others not. Prices will go up in desirable places.
Construction of new residences has been down. What kind of units will be built? If recent trends hold, it will be housing aimed more at wealthier residents. Additionally, these units will be constructed in some locations and not others.
Members of the city’s planning and zoning commission gave a chilly reception to the freshly painted exterior at JoJo’s, a self-described “next generation diner” with milkshakes, milk and cookie flights and diner classics that’s scheduled to open this month at 5 Jackson Ave.
But because JoJo’s adhered to city codes regarding its main color choice and the amount of accent color it used, there’s not much the commission or the city can do except possibly ask JoJo’s to change the facade and create stricter guidelines for the future…
Behind white raised letters reading “JoJo’s Shake Bar” is a turquoise background stretching across the two-story building that looks like dripping ice cream extending down past the top of the second-floor windows.
Commission members said a uniform block of turquoise across the top would have been acceptable. They believe the dripping effect, however, isn’t appropriate for downtown Naperville…
The issue came up at the end of Wednesday’s meeting when Commissioner Anthony Losurdo said he saw the facade while driving by, labeling it a “sore thumb.” Stressing he wouldn’t have approved the look had it been subject to a vote, Losurdo said he has received complaints about the paint scheme from residents.
Many communities have guidelines for signs and facades. This helps create a more uniform look, ensures that no single property sticks out too much from others, and can limit concerns from nearby residents (such as signs that are too bright or too big). The aesthetics help contribute to an overall character the community wants to promote.
Naperville’s downtown is important for the community. With its revival in recent decades, the city is proud of the bustling business and social activity downtown. It wants to both nurture and protect that for the future. The downtown helps the community stand out from other suburbs and generates revenue.
So, protecting the look of downtown buildings makes sense. On the other hand, concerns about this new business could send out other signals. It sounds like JoJo’s followed existing guidelines. The end result may not be what some leaders and residents desire but it was within regulations. This commission is supposed to talk about issues like these; their task is to see how properties align with the city’s guidelines. The regulations can be changed to prevent such outcomes.
Even having an article with a headline like this might contribute to perceptions that Naperville is a snobby place. The appearance of dripping paint is a big problem for the community? Does a negative reaction welcome the new business? Is it helpful to have these conversations through a local newspaper?
It is unclear how many people and leaders in Naperville have concerns with the paint job. Will it soon be changed and/or the regulations updated to avoid a similar case? Or, can one building stand out a little in a successful downtown?
More than 150 years ago, the 19th-century farming community’s prosperity was inextricably tied to its proximity to the railroad line, which served as a trading hub bolstering the town’s agrarian economy. By the 1920s, the community would become home to professionals boarding commuter trains headed to and from the city.
Despite many of those residents working at home these days as a result of the pandemic, the Union Pacific Northwest line dissecting the village of 77,000 residents is still viewed as an economic engine. But Arlington Heights is no longer beholden to the fortunes of Chicago, making the prospect of a Bears stadium in town interesting, yet not essential…
Embracing change has been a recipe for success for the revitalization of downtown Arlington Heights, which like central business districts across the U.S., was languishing in the 1970s and ’80s after mom and pop businesses were devastated by shopping malls and big-box stores, said Charles Witherington-Perkins, the village’s director of planning and community development…
To build the Arlington Heights of today, crafting a new downtown master plan was only the first step. In order to execute the vision, officials needed to loosen building height and density restrictions — stringent regulations that were making it impossible to create an economically and aesthetically vibrant downtown, Witherington-Perkins said…
The contingent of new residents arriving in Arlington Heights — many of whom were commuters attracted to the complex’s proximity to the Metra station — ushered in a surge of downtown residential and retail development that has served as a model for neighboring communities along the Metra line.
Take out the name of Arlington Heights and a few other regional details, and this story might be told for dozens of suburbs in the Chicago region as well as dozens more outside of older American big cities. Here are a few of the common features:
A founding before mass suburbanization. Communities were small, farming was a primary industry, and the railroad was very important for the initial mass of people at that spot.
Mass suburbanization of the twentieth century brought many residents and changes.
Revitalizing suburban downtowns became a priority in the last four decades as competition from shopping malls and strip malls moved business activity away.
This revitalization included adding residential units in denser structures.
As noted elsewhere in this article, these choices about downtown redevelopment often involved choosing more expensive housing units rather than affordable housing. Even when cases went to court (as one did in Arlington Heights), relatively few affordable housing units were created in these denser suburban areas. This leaves Arlington Heights as wealthy and whiter.
This theoretically means the community is more independent from Chicago with its own ecosystem of residential and commercial life downtown and in the suburb.
Does all of this add up to a new state-of-the-art stadium with a multi-billion dollar price tag being constructed in the suburb? That may be a separate issue given how few stadiums are in even large metropolitan areas and the sizable available property at play here.
Is Arlington Heights now truly independent of Chicago and self-sufficient? I would prefer to consider metropolitan regions as a whole as the fate of particular suburbs are connected both to the health of the big city and the suburbs. While a Bears stadium in Arlington Heights will be discussed as a win for the suburb (mostly – as the article notes, some residents oppose it) and a loss for the city of Chicago, the team and the benefits that come with it are still in the region.
Yet, it is worth noting that how the changing suburb understands itself is important. No longer a small farming community, Arlington Heights likely views itself as ambitious and making choices today to help secure its future success. A denser downtown provides a different experience than a bedroom suburb strictly made up of single-family homes. A Bears stadium would put them on the map in a way that few other nearby suburbs could equal. What Arlington Heights is and will be depends on choices made and responses from all of the actors involved.
Legally Sociable 