Tag Archives: Naperville

Play considers what it was like to grow up in Naperville

Posted on by

Since the post-World War II suburban boom, a number of writers, filmmakers, musicians, and others have considered suburban life. Mat Smart, a playwright who grew up in Naperville, has a new Steppenwolf play about growing up in that community:

Though Smart acknowledges that part of the play’s genesis stems from a trip he took to Cameroon five years ago, the issues explored come from the same place where he grew up. Smart said the brothers, whom he described as “very much suburban Chicago dudes,” have differing views of growing up in Naperville.

Samuel K., the adopted brother, enjoyed living there, while Samuel J. complains about it and says the people living there are shallow.

“That was the same discourse among some of my friends when we were growing up,” Smart said. “Some people love it and some people hate it. But you’ll probably find that anywhere in the world.”

This sounds like it could be a different view than many works that simply suggest living in the suburbs is one of life’s worst fates.

The play also contains some dialogue comparing Naperville to another Chicago suburb:

The play also includes a humorous exchange between the brothers poking fun at the underlying attitudes some Naperville residents hold toward neighboring Aurora.

Samuel K. tells his brother, “Stop dumping on Naperville. We’re lucky to be from there. We could be from a lot worse places.”

“What, like Aurora?” Samuel J. says.

“No, like Rwanda.”

This exchange hints at how suburbanites view the character of other suburbs. For some Naperville residents, Aurora would be considered beneath their community with comparisons made between schools, crime rates, housing prices, downtowns, and more. Historically, Naperville thought Hinsdale was above it as it had a wealthier population. These sorts of comparisons between suburbs are not always explicitly stated but I suspect are commonly held among suburbanites.

Naperville’s ongoing problem with 1 homeless man

Posted on by

Naperville in the last decade has been a celebrated place: named one of the best places to live in the country plus a growing population plus a vibrant suburban downtown. But one homeless man has created an ongoing set of issues:

A Naperville psychologist and others asked the Naperville City Council Tuesday to do more about what they say is continued harassment from protester and squatter Scott Huber.

Kathy Borchardt, a clinical child psychologist who is suing Huber after a 2010 confrontation that resulted in disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing charges against him, said she was frustrated more has not been done to stop Huber’s infringement on business owner’s rights.

“This sort of bullying behavior by Mr. Huber has given him more power in this community than any business owner or official,” she said, adding that an ordinance passed by the council banning camping on sidewalks in the downtown area caused Huber to move outside her business, leading to the confrontation.

Huber frequently sets up a makeshift, mobile protest site on Ogden Avenue and in other areas of the city with signs calling for the boycott of Borchardt’s practice and claims about her ethics…

City Attorney Margo Ely said the encampment ordinance that was put in place was a legal remedy the city thought would hold up if challenged in court. Expanding the ordinance to the entire city — instead of just its downtown — or establishing “free speech zones” would be a lot less likely to withstand a legal challenge. She also cautioned that the city cannot act to limit the free speech of an individual.

Councilman Bob Fieseler said the issue could be handled immediately by enforcing laws on the books giving the city the right to confiscate property left unattended on public sidewalks…

But Police Chief Dave Dial said he — nor patrol officers — have seen Huber blocking walkways or leaving his property unattended.

This story has been going on for quite a while now. This is not an issue – a homeless man creating trouble – that typically plagues suburbs but Naperville is no normal suburb due to its size plus affluence.

Throughout the coverage of this case, I don’t remember reading about efforts by the City of Naperville or Naperville citizens to help this man stay off the streets (beyond city efforts to enforce or create ordinances). And if there is one homeless man on the streets, how has the city of Naperville dealt with this issue? Is this affluent community prepared for big-city type problems?

The methodology behind Money’s 2010 best places to live

Posted on by

Every year, Money magazine publishes a list of “the best places to live.” I’ve always enjoyed this list as it attempts to distill what communities truly match what people would desire in a community. The winner in 2010 (in the August issue) was Eden Prairie, Minnesota

But one issue with this list is how the communities are selected. In 2009, the list was about small towns, communities between 8,500 and 50,000. In 2010, the list was restricted to “small cities,” places with 50,000 to 300,000 residents. Here is how the magazine selected its 2010 list of communities to grade and rank:

746
Start with all U.S. cities with a population of 50,000 to 300,000.

555
Exclude places where the median family income is more than 200% or less than 85% of the state median and those more than 95% white.

322
Screen out retirement communities, towns with significant job loss, and those with poor education and crime scores. Rank remaining places based on housing affordability, school quality, arts and leisure, safety, health care, diversity, and several ease-of-living criteria.

100
Factor in additional data on the economy (including fiscal strength of the government), jobs, housing, and schools. Weight economic factors most heavily.

30
Visit towns and interview residents, assessing traffic, parks, and gathering places and considering intangibles like community spirit.

1
Select the winner based on the data and reporting.

A couple of questions I have:

1. I agree that it can be hard to compare communities with 10,000 people and 150,000 people. But can the list from each year be called “the best place to live” if the communities of interest change?

2. I wonder how they chose the median income cutoffs. So this cuts out places that might be “too exclusive” or “not exclusive enough.” Are these places not desirable to people?

3. Some measure of racial homogeneity is included in several steps. How many home buyers desire this? We know from a lot of research that whites tend to avoid neighborhoods with even moderate levels of African-Americans.

4. Weighting economic factors heavily seems to make sense. Jobs and economic opportunities are a good enticement for moving.

5. I would be interested to see what kind of information they collected on their 30 community visits. How many residents and leaders did they talk to? How does one measure “community spirit”? If a community says it has “community spirit,” how exactly do you check to see whether that is correct?

Overall, this is a complicated methodology that accounts for a number of factors. What I would like to know is how this list compares with how Americans make decisions about where to live. Do people want to move up to places like this and then stay there or is the dream for many to move on to more exclusive communities (if possible)? How many Americans could realistically afford to or possibly move into these communities?

(A side note: the four Chicago suburbs in the top 100 for 2010: Bolingbrook at #43, Naperville at #54, Mount Prospect at #56, and Arlington Heights at #59. Naperville used to rank much higher earlier in the 21st century – I wonder how it has slipped in the rankings.)

Fighting over suburban character: Show-Me’s in Naperville

Posted on by

One long-lasting idea about suburbs is that they are family-friendly places. So when a business comes to town that may not fit that image, some residents can become angered. Such is the case with a new restaurant that wants to move into Naperville:

Naperville residents will get a chance this week to formally voice their opinions about a controversial plan to open a restaurant called Show-Me’s, which opponents say will feature scantily clad waitresses who do not fit the city’s “family-friendly” image.

An open forum will be held during a Naperville Liquor Commission meeting Thursday.

But a group of about 30 people let their feelings be known during a demonstration Friday. Standing in front of the proposed site, they loudly chanted “Stop the show!” to passing cars.

The protesters have suggested this restaurant does not fit with the character of the community. The community’s mayor is on the record suggesting that he “thought it was a regular restaurant as far as I was concerned” and the clothing of the waitresses was “tastefully done.”

While this seems like just a small group of protesters, the question they raise is an interesting one: what exactly is a suburban community supposed to look like? What businesses and residents fit its image? As the mayor suggested, the proposed restaurant is not breaking any laws or rules so it would hard to reject their liquor license proposal. But necessarily following the rules or laws is not the concern of many suburbanites who have ideas about their ideal community. Local politicians have to account for (or at least acknowledge) these feelings and images even if the proposed business breaks no rules and brings in tax dollars.

(Additionally, it always interesting to read comments on stories about Naperville – it tends to bring out people who both intensely dislike and like the city.)

An innovative revenue stream for suburbs: exclusive advertisements on city property

Posted on by

Naperville, Illinois is considering a new tactic to provide for funds for the city’s coffers as there is nearly a $5 million budget shortfall projected for next year:

Naperville is considering an unusual option for long-term revenue: giving corporations exclusive rights to advertise on city property.

In a memo to the City Council this month, finance director Karen DeAngelis cited several examples of how this could work, including a program in which KFC pays for pothole repairs in cash-strapped cities in exchange for stamping the fresh asphalt with the chicken chain’s logo.

Naperville also could sell the naming rights of buildings or allow companies to advertise their products as “the official drink” or “the official burger” of the suburb for a fee, DeAngelis said.

“It’s not something we’ve done before, so we would be on the leading edge and we would need to be careful,” she said in an interview.

This might lead to some very interesting scenes – “Naperville City Hall, brought to you by Geico.” I imagine such ads might be attractive to businesses for the amount of people who might see them, particularly in a vibrant downtown Naperville.

Would a majority of suburban residents go for this? As one expert suggests in the story, this could lead to some negative repercussions and a process of “NASCAR-ization.”

If the city of Naperville couldn’t raise a significant amount of money with a program like this, would it be worth doing it on a small scale or would it just lead to more trouble than its worth?

Suburban budget cuts lead to volunteer opportunities

Posted on by

Many suburban communities have had budget difficulties in the last few years, leading to staffing cuts and other measures.

Naperville, Illinois, a prosperous Chicago suburb, had some similar issues. Because of some of the staffing cuts, the city is now looking for volunteers to help out at City Hall:

The pilot Municipal Volunteer Program is still accepting applications, said Community Relations Manager Nadja Lalvani, and has already drawn the interest of about a dozen people. Currently, the city is looking to fill a vacant front desk at city hall that used to be occupied by a greeter, but due to budget cuts, the position was eliminated…

The front-desk position at city hall will be the first volunteer opportunity opened to the public, Lalvani said. The greeter will be responsible for directing people to various parts of city hall, and could be trained to operate the phone switchboard in the future.

After the pilot period ends in six months, the city will evaluate the program. If all goes well, there could be more opportunities for volunteers.

Is a program like this only possible in generally well-off and well-run places like Naperville? How many citizens today would be willing to volunteer to help the local city government (as opposed to other volunteer opportunities or not volunteering at all)? Naperville does talk up its volunteer spirit so perhaps this ethos will come through and help the city fill a few positions.

The diverging diamond interchange

Posted on by

American interchanges can take many forms – see this field guide to highway interchanges from The Infrastructurist – including one called “the diverging diamond.” The goal is to provide better traffic flow from a road onto a highway through switching the lanes of traffic through the interchange area. That is, traffic entering on the right side of the road are then driving on the left through the interchange and vice versa.

Illinois Department of Transportation officials are considering this design, primarily being touted by Missouri officials, for an interchange in Naperville. See the design here and the background to the interchange here.