Tag Archives: character

Naperville responds to the claim it is a snobby mid-sized city

Posted on by

Movoto recently named Naperville the 4th snobbiest mid-sized city in America. Here is their short description of the suburb:

If this place seems like a bit of an odd man out on our list, don’t be fooled. Naperville had the second highest household income, and over 66 percent of locals had a college degree, so these are some world-wise and wealthy people. Plus, they’re able to congregate together in their seventh place country clubs, probably to sample wine and discuss recent stock market trends.

This city may not have the highest ranking in refined restaurants, but it does have a somewhat refined palate. If you don’t believe me, you can try the cuisine at Morton’s The Steakhouse and you’ll know for sure you’re in a place all about class. Just be sure to bring a well packed wallet, these savory steaks do not come cheap. Who ever said the best things in life are free? It definitely wasn’t Naperville.

And here are two responses from Naperville residents:

1. Naperville Mayor George Pradel said:

Longtime Mayor George Pradel, considered by many to be the city’s most ardent booster, took a glass-is-half-full approach to news of the city’s snob ranking.

“I’m taking a positive attitude toward that. Actually it puts Naperville on the map again,” Pradel said. “Naperville is a great city. I think we are very fortunate to have us be recognized.

“If you look at their statistics, the background, homes, income, education, one could assume that this could be a snooty area. But it’s not until you actually get out in the community when you find out that’s really not what’s happening here,” he said. “That’s just kind of looking at it on the surface. You find that this is a very, very friendly city and people care about each other.”

Pradel echoes a claim a number of city leaders have made over the years: Naperville may be large and have money but what really sets it apart is its community spirit. Often invoked is the community’s efforts to build Centennial Beach in the early 1930s and then the volunteers that started the Riverwalk in the late 1970s. In other words, Naperville still has the spirit of a small town even though it no longer looks like one.

2. A Naperville resident wrote an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune that took a different tack:

To those of us who know the real Naperville, this is character defamation. Naperville, now a bustling suburb, was filled with rows of corn and old barns just 20 years ago. I’m in my late 20s, and the Naperville I grew up in was open land peppered with old strip malls and newish subdivisions. There is now less open space and there are more McMansions, but the Naperville I know is still comparable to most Midwest suburbs — packed with minivans, soccer practices, block parties, well-manicured lawns and chain restaurants.

Naperville isn’t North Shore affluence. Many label Naperville as “new money” — and this seems at least partially true. A majority of my classmates and friends from Naperville had parents who came from humble beginnings and worked hard to achieve their place in an upper-middle-class income bracket. This sounds more like the American Dream than snobbery…

Movoto ranked only “midsized cities.” The top snob list only includes towns with populations of 120,000 to 220,000 people. That means Chicago suburbs such as Hinsdale, Winnetka, Lake Forest, Glencoe and Barrington weren’t contenders in the competition. Just saying.

Also, Movoto is on a ranking spree. The site has ranked the happiest, most exciting, safest and most creative cities in America and is now doling out these individual rankings state by state. It recently dubbed Rolling Meadows and New Lenox as the “most boring” towns in Illinois. Well, who crowned Movoto as the all-knowing king of rankings? Not fair, I say. I bet people in New Lenox have fun sometimes.

Instead of appealing to the great community, this op-ed applies a scattershot defense. First, Naperville isn’t really that different than many suburbs because it still had open land nearby several decades ago. There may be some truth to this – as late as 1980, Naperville had just 42,000 residents so much of the explosive growth has happened since then, particularly by 2000 when the suburb had over 128,000 residents. Second, Naperville isn’t like old-money snobby Chicago suburbs, whether that is small North Shore suburbs or other pockets west of the city. Third, one could question the methodology of determining whether a suburb is snobby.

All together, I would suggest Naperville is unusually large and wealthy for a suburb. Traditionally, wealthier suburbs have been small, geographically-restricted areas where residents can protect their zoning and community character. But, Naperville has both size (around 144,000 residents over 39 square miles) and wealth (median household income over $108,000), drawing upon white-collar businesses and research facilities that moved in or nearby after World War II and annexing a lot of land. But, whether all of this makes a community snobby is much harder to measure. On the ground, suburbanites have perceptions about which communities are more or less snobby and as the op-ed above suggests, Naperville residents might often look to other suburbs as more snobby.

Just to note: this isn’t the first time such claims have been made about Naperville. I remember seeing one response to similar claims a decade or so ago that asked whether it was so bad that Naperville residents just wanted the best in life and in their community.

Determining whether “Boston Strong” has run its course requires more than a few interviews

Posted on by

The “Boston Strong” motto has been ever-present again this week – and one journalist suggests some Boston residents want to move on.

Inventory manager Make Nash, a resident of Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, is among those who have heard enough of the rallying cry.“Forget ‘Boston Strong.’ Be strong!” he says…

Freelance journalist R. Brock Olson disputed the idea that a hashtag slogan can hold the capacity to heal in a post titled “We are not #BostonStrong” on his “View From Boston” blog this week, which was republished on Salon on Friday.

“The #BostonStrong meme betrays our insecurities. If we were strong, we would not need to remind ourselves,” he wrote.

Two instances of people who want to move on from the slogan. At the least, the article might suggest there is disagreement about how long the term should be used. Yet, the article provides little evidence either way that these are sentiments held by a lot of residents or just a few.

This is a good example of the difference in approach by journalists and sociologists. While there may be some signs of discussion in Boston – and it is hard to know this without being there – sociologists would tend to want more evidence. How about a survey in the metropolitan region about the term “Boston Strong”? Couldn’t such a question be included in a survey about how residents feel about the bombings, whether they feel safer today, and whether there is still a sense of solidarity in the region? Or, if a survey with a representative sample of the region isn’t preferred, how about more interviews rather than a few for or against the motto?

Steps for cities trying to brand themselves

Posted on by

Most cities would love to attract more business and visitors and thereby expand their tax base. But, how can cities brand themselves today amidst so much competition?

Cities of varying sizes struggle with two related, but seemingly opposing, global and local forces. At one level, every city would like to benefit from the global flow of capital and the emerging landscapes of prosperity seen in “other” places. At another level, to be a recipient of such attention, a city has to offer something more than cheaper real estate and tax benefits.

What cities need is a sense of uniqueness; something that separates them from other cities. Without uniqueness, a city can easily be made invisible in a world of cities. In other words, without defining the “local,” there is no “global.” Here is where identifying a coherent message about a place, based on its identity, becomes crucial. One of the major challenges facing many cities, small and large, is how to make themselves visible, and how to identify, activate, and communicate their place identity – their brand – through actions.

The challenge of urban branding is that cities are not commodities. As such, urban branding is not the same as product or corporate-style branding. Cities are much more complex and contain multiple identity narratives; whatever the business and leadership says, there are other local voices that may challenge the accepted “script”. In fact, while city marketing may focus mainly on attracting capital through economic development and tourism, urban branding needs to move beyond the simply utilitarian, and consider memories, urban experiences, and quality of life issues that affect those who live in a city. A brand does not exist outside the reality of a city. It is not an imported idea. It is an internally generated identity, rooted in the history and assets of a city…

To make a city visible takes more than a logo. The future of a city region depends on a diversity of political, managerial, community and business leaders who will participate and sustain a process that will lead to an inclusively created brand, followed by actions that embrace it. Cities without articulated identities will remain invisible, lamenting at every historical turn the loss of yet another opportunity to be like their more successful neighbors.

The primary parts of this argument are: (1) have a cohesive and dynamic set of local leaders; (2) identify and/or develop a key unique feature or identity to build upon; and (3) focus not just on economic factors but cultural scenes. I don’t know that these have changed all that much in recent decades though the second and third pieces may seem more difficult today due to increased competition, both for perceived limited resources and the reality that cities now compete against a wider set of cities. Boosterism has been a consistent dimension of American cities for a long time but their status anxiety may have increased in recent decades.

I wonder if part of the branding issue today is defining what makes a city successful. What should the average city strive for in terms of development? Is it better to shoot for the moon? Should a city set more realistic goals? Is it okay for many leaders to be more of a regional center appealing to a more immediate population or should everyone go in on a global game? Is this about increasing population, having more tourists, attracting more businesses, rehabbing rundown neighborhoods, being able to pay their own bills, a combination of all of these or something else? Communities have all sorts of narratives they tell about themselves that can range from the stable community that pays its bills to a friendly, helping place to the city that has all of the quality of life amenities to the suburb that has a disproportionate of valuable white-collar jobs. Some of this branding/narrative development/character happens in relation to other cities geographically nearby or in a perceived similar category (Chicago might compare itself to New York City but they compare themselves to cities like London and Tokyo) but there is also an internal dimension they may not be intended for outsiders.

Wheaton joins other communities in zoning medical marijuana dispensaries in manufacturing and industrial zones

Posted on by

Similar to Naperville, Wheaton wants to restrict medical dispensaries to manufacturing and industrial zones, near the city’s downtown:

City council members Monday gave their preliminary approval of zoning changes that would limit any dispensing operations to the industrial and manufacturing zones immediately south and west of the city’s downtown…

“[State law] pretty much excludes all property in Wheaton from having a cultivation center. The dispensing organizations have slightly different restrictions,” said James Kozik, director of planning and economic development. “It seems to be the trend that the locations where a community is permitting them seems to be in the manufacturing or industrial area.”

The state also prohibits businesses that will dispense medical marijuana from being within 1,000 feet of the property line of a school or day care, from opening in any type of residence or residential area, and from referring patients to a physician.

Under the state statute, Kozik said, without city action, dispensing operations could also be located in the Danada shopping area, East Roosevelt Road, portions of the Wheaton College campus and portions of the DuPage County Complex along County Farm Road.

City Manager Don Rose said he believes law enforcement officials would prefer to have dispensing facilities limited to the manufacturing district. Most council members agreed.

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out in Wheaton, given the community’s conservative political and religious character, as well as in other suburban communities.

Peak sprawl does not mean the end of suburbs but rather their densification

Posted on by

One researcher argues the suburbs of the future will be less sprawl and have more density:

Since 2009, 60 percent of new office, retail and rental properties in Atlanta have been built in what Christopher Leinberger calls “walkable urban places” – those neighborhoods already blessed by high Walk Scores or on their way there. That new construction has taken place on less than 1 percent of the metropolitan Atlanta region’s land mass, suggesting a shift in real estate patterns from expansion at the city’s edges to denser development within its existing borders.

“This is indicative that we’re seeing the end of sprawl,” says Leinberger, a research professor with the George Washington University School of Business, who led the study in conjunction with Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Regional Commission. “It does not say that everything turns off. There will still be new drivable suburban development. It’s just that the majority will be walkable urban, and it will be not just in the redevelopment of our downtowns, but in the urbanization of the suburbs.”…

“I think there’s a cause-and-effect issue here,” he says. “I think that when the economy picks up steam, it’s going to be because we learn how to build walkable urban places. Real estate caused this debacle, and real estate has always acted as a catalyst for economic recoveries.”

He figures we’re sputtering along at 2 percent growth precisely because we’re not building enough of the walkable urban product that the market wants. “And it’s signaling with pretty flashing lights,” he says, “to build more of this stuff.”

New Urbanists FTW! The argument here is that the suburbs will continue – with their features of home ownership, cars, local control, autonomy, etc. – but they will look different due to denser designs, feature different kinds of community and social life, and include more features like cultural centers or mixed-use neighborhoods that are more traditionally associated with cities.

One obstacle to this might be how much existing suburbs are willing to increase their densities. This make make financial sense or be good for growth but it could also alter the character of more sprawling communities. For example, many suburbs have already considered or built transit-oriented development where denser housing and space is built near mass transit. But, would they be willing to extend such construction across more of their area?

Argument: many Chicago suburbs have boring mottos

Posted on by

The Daily Herald suggests a number of Chicago suburbs have dull mottos that don’t say much about the communities:

Town mottos are like nicknames in that the best ones, such as “City of Big Shoulders” for Chicago, are bestowed by others and not self-proclaimed, such as “Urbus en Horto” (“City in a Garden”) for Chicago. At least there is a story behind Des Plaines’ destiny. Most suburbs adopt bland, easily forgotten mottos that tout development or vague hopes for the future, such as Schaumburg’s “Progress Through Thoughtful Planning,” Bloomingdale’s “Growth With Pride,” or Bolingbrook’s “A Place to Grow.”

Wauconda’s “Water. Spirit. Wonder.” is unique but might sound a little cold compared to neighboring Island Lake, which is “A Community of Friendly People” who settled there instead of in Huntley, “The Friendly Village with Country Charm.”

Hanover Park opts for “One Village — One Future.” It doesn’t say much, but no one can argue with the math. No one should quibble about Elgin’s “The City in the Suburbs.” But Naperville’s “Great Service — All the Time,” also a favorite motto of pizzerias, might fuel discussions. One Wikipedia entry falsely touts Libertyville’s motto as the impressive “Fortitudine Vincimus,” Latin for “By Endurance We Conquer,” which basically means “We Will Win By Hanging Around Until Everybody Else Quits.” But Libertyville never used that motto and currently sports only the phrase “Spirit of Independence” on its red-white-and-blue logo…

Lombard, “The Lilac Village,” still boasts a motto that brings to mind something pretty and fragrant. Roselle hosts a rose parade and includes roses in its village seal, but it uses the motto “Tradition Meets Tomorrow,” which is pretty similar to the “Where Tradition and Vision Meet” motto of Batavia. (Given Batavia’s link to the high-energy physics of Fermilab, it might consider the motto “Village of Density.”)

These mottos sound like classic talk from city boosters: they tend to contain grand visions about the future without getting into too many specifics or highlight a small part of the community’s character. I think they are primarily about trying to impress businesses, trying to attract them to relocate in a place that is thriving and will continue to thrive.

Unfortunately, when all the mottos sound similar, they all don’t mean a whole lot. How does a business really differentiate between communities based on their mottos? The biggest issue for a suburb might be having a motto that is significantly different. This might lead people to ask why that community is so out of line.

Critics of suburbs might see these mottos as more evidence of the homogeneity or blandness of suburbs. Many communities seem to be striving after the same things. Yet, we know that suburbs are actually quite different, whether that is due to different functions (like comparing a bedroom suburb and an edge city) or different histories (date of founding, specific historical circumstances) or a unique set of self-perception (like suburbs that view themselves as extra friendly or full of volunteers). So perhaps more suburbs should work to differentiate themselves in their mottos, move away from bland American notions of progress, and more explicitly highlight their more unique features.

Countering blanket statements about cities and suburbs

Posted on by

A Dallas columnist argues typical views of the city and suburbs are outdated:

Yet we seem to cling stubbornly to outdated city-vs.-suburb cliches and mutual suspicions that serve no purpose other than to make people think ill of one another.

On one side are quasi-racist Dallas baiters for whom “urban” is thinly veiled doublespeak for poor, minority, crime-plagued neighborhoods where government is unfailingly corrupt and public schools actually make kids stupider. It’s a segregationist stereotype that by now should be eroded by three decades worth of urban revitalization, crime reduction and development of spectacular public spaces.

On the other are sanctimonious hipsters who use “suburban” as an insult that describes selfish, conformist commuters who drive everywhere in super-sized SUVs, spend their leisure time at the mall, vote like the people next door and think “art” is a Thomas Kinkade print. It’s a myopic definition that hasn’t budged since Richard Yates wrote Revolutionary Road in 1961.

The truth is that the places we live are as individual as we are, and we choose them based on our individual priorities — entertainment, safety, good schools, friendly neighbors, what we can afford, what we want to see when we look out the window.

I agree with one conclusion but not the other. First, individual communities, whether they are urban neighborhoods with a sense of place or far-flung suburbs, are unique and have different characters. This is particularly true for a number of the people who live there and buy, in terms of housing but also symbolically and culturally, into the place. Both cities and suburbs are assumed to be all alike and this is simply not the case. There are distinguishing differences between these different types, such as population density, the number of nearby jobs and business, the kinds of housing, the history, etc. but it is silly to lump them all together.

On the second conclusion, it isn’t quite as simple as suggesting people make individual choices. This may feel like it is the case, particularly for those with means (money, status), but even those people are constrained by the lifestyles they desire. But, people with less means have fewer choices and then are restricted by cheaper housing options or what is close to jobs. In other words, residential choices tend to fall into patterns based on class and race, whether in the cities or suburbs.

Argument: New England neighborhoods attract movies because they have character and don’t have McMansions

Posted on by

A columnist in Swampscott, Massachusetts argues New England neighborhoods have a sense of place, don’t have many McMansions, and therefore attract filmmakers:

If you’ve ever traveled outside New England, you begin to notice that most of the rest of the country looks a lot alike. Rapid development on a budget lends itself to a landscape of boxy stores in strip malls and cookie cutter homes. Some of these cookie cutter homes are “McMansions,” and very nice to live in, but even so their exteriors are unmemorable, duplicated a million times over.

New England—Swampscott—looks different.  Neighborhoods have personalities. The roads curve in unpredictable ways.  Houses don’t all look alike. I happen to like the intricate purple paint on a certain home on Paradise Road, but we all have our favorites…

Yet there is true value in this difference.  Part of the reason that Massachusetts has attracted so many movies is because of our location—place matters.  Grown-Ups 2 is here because Swampscott looks like a typical New England town, and New England is a good brand, a marketable brand.

And crucial to the New England brand is a community’s willingness to embrace its historic past, to pay attention to its older buildings, and to, in short, care about the way something looks. A quick drive through the Olmstead District will remind all of us how lucky we are that the Mudges had the foresight to hire someone so talented to lay it out, that the town pays to upkeep the greens, and that the homeowners in the area now take such pride in their property.

New England does indeed have its own style and character though plenty of other places in the United States have historic preservation districts that are intended to save older buildings.

There is an interesting implication here that McMansions developed in places with less character. This would be intriguing to track: did the term first arise in Sunbelt locations or in more historic communities that felt threatened by new, big, mass produced homes?

I also wonder how many movies actually do film in New England compared to other locations. According to the Massachusetts Film Office, five films are in production or have recently finished filming. Like many other places, Massachusetts offers incentives for filmmakers:

Massachusetts provides filmmakers with a highly competitive package of tax incentives: a 25% production credit, a 25% payroll credit, and a sales tax exemption.

Any project that spends more than $50,000 in Massachusetts qualifies for the payroll credit and sales tax exemption. Spending more than 50% of total budget or filming at least 50% of the principal photography days in Massachusetts makes the project eligible for the production credit.

Naperville moving forward with proposal for influential mixed-use Water Street development

Posted on by

An important new development proposal in Naperville is back up for discussion:

Plans to develop the Water Street area of Naperville’s downtown are being revived after five years and now include a 130-room hotel.

However, the latest proposal will have to overcome concerns from city officials and residents about issues of height, density and traffic congestion.

Marquette Companies, under the name MP Water Street District LLC, presented its revised plan to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission this week. The 2.4-acre site is bounded by Aurora Avenue on the south, the DuPage River on the north, Main Street on the east and Webster Street on the west…

The current proposal calls for a 130-room Holiday Inn Express and Suites; 61 to 65 apartments; retail, restaurant and office spaces; and a 550-space parking garage. There also would be a plaza and connection to the Riverwalk.

The tallest portion of the development would be the hotel, which has a tower that reaches just above 90 feet…

Bob Fischer, vice president of the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation, said the plans will “canyonize Water Street.”

“Allowing this kind of height and density along the Riverwalk will forever diminish it as the crown jewel of our downtown,” he said.

I think there are two big points about this that are not mentioned in the article:

1. One important feature of this mixed-use development is that it is south of the DuPage River. In other words, this development would firmly move the downtown across the river. This is no small matter: while there is development on the south side, it is primarily smaller and single-family home. Naperville’s downtown is popular (see the parking issues) but it is not clear that a majority of Naperville residents want the downtown to expand into more residential areas.

2. This development speaks to a broader issue: is Naperville ready for denser development? While the community added about 100,000 people between 1980 and 2008 as it expanded primarily to the south and west, there is really no open land left in the community. Thus, to grow, the city must approve denser development. The downtown is the logical place to start: it is near a train station, it has a number of restaurants and stores, and seems to be quite popular. Yet, projects like this could push Naperville into a new era of mixed-use and denser development as opposed to the primarily single-family home development that characterized the post-war era.

I’ll be tracking what happens with this proposal as both of the issues I cited above are likely to generate a lot of public discussion and comment. This could be a turning point in Naperville’s history: should the downtown expand in a big way and should the city pursue denser development in desirable locations?

UPDATE: I wouldn’t be surprised if the project is approved but the height is limited to something like fifty or sixty feet (five or six stories). Ninety feet would be quite high for downtown Naperville though approving that height could indicate some willingness to to pursue taller projects in the future.

Builders constructing denser, more urban developments in the suburbs

Posted on by

USA Today reports that more builders are constructing denser suburban subdivisions:

The nation’s development patterns may be at a historic juncture as builders begin to reverse 60-year-old trends. They’re shifting from giant communities on wide-open “greenfields” to compact “infill” housing in already-developed urban settings…

“It’s the kids (ages 18 to 32), the empty nesters (Baby Boomers with no kids at home),” says Chris Leinberger, president of Smart Growth America’s LOCUS (Latin for “place”), a national coalition of real estate developers and investors who support urban developments that encourage walking over driving. “These two generations combined are more than half of the American population.”…

Most major builders have created “urban” divisions in the past five years to scout for available land in already-developed parts of cities and closer suburbs — even if it means former industrial and commercial sites or land that may require environmental cleanup…

Even traditional communities built on greenfields are transforming. In Southern California’s Inland Empire, an area where housing prices are lower and appeal to first-time buyers, Brookfield is building Edenglen in Ontario. The homes are built on smaller lots — 4,500 square feet instead of the more conventional 7,200 square feet — and priced from $200,000 to $300,000.

This phenomenon has been noted by a number of commentators in recent years though I wonder if it will last.

A few other consequences of this for suburbs:

1. How will existing suburban residents respond to dense, infill projects? I would guess that a good number of suburbanites would object to these dense projects being built near them, spoiling their neighborhoods.

2. Related to the first question about NIMBYism, how will these new developments change the character of existing suburbs? If a community is used to wide suburban streets and big lots, narrow lots and denser housing could change things.

3. This article hints at this but this could also be a product of the age of many American suburbs. Outside of the suburban fringe or exurbs, many suburbs not have at least a few decades of history and perhaps little to no open land (reaching build-out). If these suburbs want to continue to grow (boosting revenues and fees as well as prestige), infill development might be the only choice.

4. This article makes a common claim: certain generations (emerging adults and baby boomers) desire more urban kinds of housing. However, I wonder if it less about generational differences and more about the changing structure of American households. Is the increasing number of single households (which might be located more in these generations) really driving this? If so, this would be have bigger effects as the American suburbs have traditionally been communities build around family life and child-rearing.