Tag Archives: suburbs

When suburban residents want their “nice town” to remain a “nice town”

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In the last two decades, I have studied the trajectories of a number of suburban communities. There is a common pattern in the paths these suburbs have traveled: even as they have grown and changed, current residents want their suburb to stay the same. Or at least have the same features and character that existed when they moved to the community.

I found another example of this recently in a local history of Lombard, Illinois. After describing decade by decade what had happened in what was first known as Babcock’s Grove, Mildred Robinson Dunning ends The Story of Lombard: 1833-1955 this way:

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So now you have the STORY OF LOMBARD, a conservative suburban community of some 16,000 folk at the end of 1955, neither very rich nor very poor, a town built on gently rolling ground at the top of the ridge between Lake Michigan and the Fox River Valley, twenty miles west from Chicago. It is a dormitory town, a very large percent of its gainfully employed men and women finding employment outside of the town. Walk or drive down its lovely old streets, noting its homelike appearance with its well kept homes and lawns, beautiful shade trees, churches and school, parks and playgrounds. Say a “thank you” to the folk who, with foresight, persistence and patience, have made it the town that it is. It IS a nice town. So much for the past; the future of Lombard is pretty much up to all of us. Let’s keep it a nice town. (62)

These sentiments are not unusual in local histories: the founders were virtuous, the community has slowly grown, and it should continue going the way it has been. There is a hint of major change on the horizon – the population was 9,817 in 1950 while in 1960 it would have 22,561 on its way to a current population of over 44,000 – but Dunning suggests “Let’s keep it a nice town.”

What exactly does this mean? When she was writing, Lombard was not the same place it was in the 1830s and most of the 1840s before the railroad arrived and few people lived there. It was not the same place in 1955 as it was in the 1920s. One way to read this argument is that suburban residents do not want their community to lose the fundamentally attractive suburban features it had. Dunning notes that it is a bedroom community. It has “lovely old streets” with “well kept homes and lawns.” It has amenities for residents to enjoy. The people who lived there cared for it.

Another way to think about this argument is suburban residents fearing change and what might happen. If the community quadruples in size (as Lombard does between 1950 and 1980), does day to day life fundamentally change? Do these bucolic suburban features go away? Who are the new neighbors who will move in? Will Lombard continue to be stable, quiet, conservative?

Suburban communities rarely stay exactly the same for long. External forces and internal decisions push them in different directions. Local leaders and residents have a sense of what they think the community was and what they hope it might be. And it is easy to give in to thinking the suburb had a golden era where it was truly a suburban paradise.

Lombard residents and leaders might very tell today describe their suburb as a “nice town.” How they do so might differ from Dunning as seven decades have passed and Lombard is a larger and different suburban community. They, too, might say that they want Lombard to remain the place that it is rather than becoming something else that they would not like.

When “everyone is chasing water” in the suburbs

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Suburban communities in Arizona are trying to make plans for supplying water in future decades. This could come with significant price hikes:

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To officials, Queen Creek is a model of how to confront the Southwest’s water woes head-on. The city expects to ultimately spend $730 million to tap into faraway groundwater, insulating themselves from drought for decades to come.

But a proposed “water resource fee” to fund the project has brought furious pushback from the highest water users in town, in a conservative place where leaders pride themselves on lowering taxes. It’s also renewed long-standing tensions over whether Queen Creek is expanding too fast for its resources, as city officials say they expect their population to nearly double by around 2050.

Other Southwest metropolises are facing similar questions about how to keep growing in arid places where water is scarce and getting more so. Arizona’s desert cities are in an especially tough position because they hold more junior water rights than other cities that draw on the Colorado River, such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego…

The average single-family home would pay an extra $57 or $138 a month once the water fee is fully phased in, officials said, depending on the details of their usage…

Incorporated in 1989 as an agricultural community of just a couple thousand people, the city’s population has grown to about 90,000, and the water issue stoked doubts among some longtime residents that the rapid change was good for them and the town.

Rapid suburban growth presents a particular set of challenges, including establishing local infrastructure that can meet the current and future needs of the community. Water is essential to daily life but is not as easy to secure in some places compared to others.

While it sounds like current residents and officials are wrestling with how to pay for current and future needs, what might this do to forecasted suburban growth? Would a community turn down growth because of not having enough water? Or would people attracted by cheaper housing here say no to a house because of water prices or water uncertainty? Would growth in a metropolitan region significantly shift toward communities that have secured future water and prices?

This applies to water in Arizona but it might also apply to other community needs. If gas and electricity prices are higher because of power needs and grid concerns. If prices suddenly spike for constructing roads, bridges, and highways. A need for internet equipment but that material is not available. And so on.

The bigger picture issue might be this: the price of a house is important for Americans. This story discusses water and hints that the monthly costs of owning a home might significantly increase. For these homeowners in Arizona, can they predict water prices five or ten years down the road? The house might look reasonable now but utility bills can cause a lot of people problems.

Beyond Halloween, what would make a suburban home spooky to the neighbors

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Inspired by seeing this request for photos of the spookiest house on the block, I thought of ways a suburban house could be spooky all year round. And by spooky I mean a threat to property values in the eyes of the neighbors. Here are some ways:

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-Don’t maintain the lawn and front yard. Long grass. Large weeds. Overgrown bushes. The backyard is more hidden so it might escape scrutiny. The front yard will be seen by everyone driving or walking by.

-Paint the house a bright and/or unusual color. Be way out of the ordinary in the color palette. Stand out. High contrast between the main color and the trim. Make people take notice.

-Leave the trash and recycling cans in a very visible location. Don’t put them away or screen them from public view. Remind everyone that the house generates refuse and recycling.

-Have holiday decorations up and on all year round. It is fun at the holiday season but keep the Christmas or Thanksgiving or Halloween or July 4th or big game decor up all the time. Have those red and green lights twinkling in late April.

-Park an unattractive vehicle or one clearly needing repair in the driveway for a long time. Let it sit without any positive changes.

I have seen some macabre Halloween yard scenes but these examples above might bother residents more. They are partly why so many Americans are willing to live in neighborhoods with HOA’s. Let a quasi-governmental body regulate these matters. Determine the exterior colors, make sure garbage cans are put away, have guidelines about landscaping, decorations, and driveways. Or some of these might fall under local ordinances, such as the height of the grass before it will be cut by a municipality with the bill going to the property owner.

Could such a scene I described above win a spooky Halloween house competition? Probably not as people like their Halloween decorations. But ask American homeowners what they would truly consider spooky and I suspect the answers would go beyond Halloween.

Trying to expand bus service in the Chicago suburbs

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Pace has a new plan under consideration that would make bus service more plentiful in the Chicago metropolitan region:

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A 50% overall spike in bus service across the region is among the promises in Pace’s ambitious ReVision plan…

“Travel patterns have changed, and fewer people commute downtown every day. Public input and ridership trends show growing demand for nontraditional transit trips — and when we increase frequency and make our service faster, ridership grows.”

The aim is to increase ridership with more frequent buses and reduction of transit deserts in far-flung communities from rural McHenry to south suburban Cook counties…

Another priority is 50% growth on fixed routes, Pace Pulse lines on corridors like the Dempster Street Line and Cermak/22nd Street Line, as well as On-Demand service.

Given the difficulties bus service has faced in the Chicago suburbs for decades, here is what I could image would provide hope for increased ridership:

  1. Increased suburban densities. Suburban areas sprawl out from the city but a number of suburban population centers in the Chicago region have pursued denser development in their downtowns and other locations. Buses could link some of these job and residence centers where driving is currently the only option.
  2. High gas prices. When would suburbanites find it too expensive to drive everywhere and instead take advantages of bus routes when they could? It might require really expensive gasoline.
  3. A changing view of buses and mass transit compared to drive. Americans tend to drive when they have the resources to do so. They like the freedom driving offers and prefer not to be with others. Could bus travel have a higher status in the suburbs?
  4. Increasingly bad traffic. More residents and more vehicles on the road could push people to mass transit.

And the article notes that this is possible because of funding created through the creation of the Northern Illinois Transportation Authority.

Driving is so part of American suburban life that it will be interesting to see if this expanded bus service is successful. Suburbs change – but will they change in such a way that bus travel becomes common?

The birds of prey perched above Chicagoland

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I have seen a number of hawks in recent years in my suburban day to day life. They are often perched in trees but I have also seen them on posts. Apparently I am not alone:

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Much like coyotes who have figured out how to live, hunt and grow in a metropolitan area of nearly 10 million people, certain raptors have found a way to survive here, and in some instances thrive, while enlisting the help of the towering street lamps and similar infrastructure, including cell phone towers and electric poles.

Drive long enough on Chicago-area highways or tollways and motorists may see a red-tailed hawk or a Cooper’s hawk, or at times something more exotic, perched high above the pavement on a light pole taking a rest or eyeing the medians and shoulders for the movement of a squirrel, rabbit, songbird or any other creature that could be a meal…

In addition to hawks, amateur wildlife photographer Jeff Nelson has spotted owls, osprey and peregrine falcons on poles in the region and elsewhere in northern Illinois in recent years…

Candy Ridlbauer of the Northern Illinois Raptor & Education group near Rockford said grassy medians and shoulders along roads are nicknamed “corridor cafes” for the birds of prey given the creatures that are often there that can be eaten. But there are a lot of “hazards being that close to roadways,” principally cars and trucks, she said.

This reminds me of several previous discussions here:

  1. I remember the book Welcome to Subirdia which I discussed years ago. It sounds like these birds have adapted to metropolitan environments in ways that they can navigate the real dangers – such as vehicles – and make homes.
  2. With the emergence of coyotes in the region came concerns from residents about threats to pets and yards. This article does not mention any residents expressing concerns about birds of prey. Might their presence affect human activity?
  3. How can we think about nature in the suburbs, a place that exists in part because people wanted to be closer to nature but also shapes nature in particular forms? Critics often suggest suburbs have ruined nature. Find a proposal for a new suburban development and you can often find a reaction that such land should be saved because of trees or wetlands or wildlife. Yet many suburbanites appreciate their lawns, gardens, and all the nature around them.

And one new thought: if there are more hawks and ospreys and owls in the Chicago suburbs, does this change any of the way suburbanites see their communities or surroundings? Think school mascots or what they might show visitors to the community or what they might teach kids about wildlife around them. This could slowly change over the years if residents get used to seeing these birds around.

How PR firms for data centers approach suburbanites

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What might help convince suburban residents that a data center is a good fit for their community?

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Experts say that certain data center PR tactics, like preparing responses for a national day of protest or building a website that allows residents to submit comments, work for any project. But they stress that every community has its own unique soft spots and tension points. The playbook that used to work in small towns and rural areas may not apply to the suburban bedroom communities where increasing numbers of data centers are now popping up.

“You kind of have a more sophisticated residency there—folks with more money, more resources, more time to spend on fighting these developments coming in,” Waitkunas said on the podcast. Years ago, a data center company could donate a quarter of a million dollars to the local school and everyone would be happy. But these days, “given the tax base that these local communities have and the demographics of the community, just simply writing a check isn’t going to make it a seamless process.” Instead, a data center might pledge to start a conservation project or build a new park—things wealthier towns appreciate more than a few hundred thousand dollars.

In the second paragraph cited, I hear several features of suburbs that data center firms have to contend with:

  1. Concerned suburban residents can keep data centers out. They have resources and political voice. They can mobilize to stop development that they do not like.
  2. Suburban communities are not swayed just by having a new business in the community (jobs, property taxes, status, etc.) or money; they want additional contributions to the well-being of their community (like parks or green spaces).
  3. The paragraph seems to be primarily describing wealthier suburbs who can be selective about their land use and the businesses they have in their community. The data center firms have to make a strong case that they enhance this already high-status community.

These strike me as unique features for a subset of suburban communities. I have not seen opposition to data center broken down by community type but I imagine a range of kinds of suburban communities – working-class, edge city, bedroom suburb, master-planned community, industrial suburb, etc. – would have a range of responses to data centers. Convincing a wealthier and smaller suburb that a data centers makes sense for them could be a very different pitch compared to other suburbs.

And if PR firms and data center firms know this, how much will they continue to try to build data centers in wealthier suburbs? Why not target land or properties in other kinds of communities that might be more receptive to data centers?

Sprawling development and a right to darkness

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American places – and global settings as well – are less dark than in the past:

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Every year, the night sky is becoming 10% brighter. Eighty per cent of people live under light-polluted skies. And while the UN declared a healthy environment – clean air, clean water – to be a human right, I believe we also all have a right to darkness as well…

To preserve the darkness would mean rules and enforcement around the warmth of the lights, where they point, and how bright they can be. It would mean not putting in three lights when one would do. If we recognized that darkness is something we need, we’d become more careful about chasing it away.

Some communities have already done this. Flagstaff, Arizona, was the first city to have outdoor lighting rules, adding them in 1958. In 2001, Flagstaff became the first recognized Dark Sky City. Their rules regulate how much light can be used, what type, and where it can shine.

Other cities and towns in the US and abroad have followed. New York state is now considering a Dark Skies Protection Act, which would add restrictions on outdoor lighting – including some that would affect the city that never sleeps. All it takes to preserve the night near you is the desire to protect it with a new zoning law or, perhaps, a rule for how bright car headlights can be.

It could be helpful to look at why American skies are brighter than in the past. Here are multiple possible reasons:

  1. Concern for safety. As Americans feared crime for decades, lighting was part of the solution.
  2. More development which equals more housing, roads, and spaces to light for human activity.
  3. Different expectations and standards for spaces. How have building codes changed regarding lighting? How do people perceive darkness now compared to the past (see #1 above)?
  4. Less engagement with nature or natural settings. Could be more screens, less walking and more driving, different modes of engagement with nature.

If Americans want darker skies or the right to dark skies, how might they then also address these other issues?

I understand the concern as a street light sits along the residential road in my front yard and the back yard has a bright light shining from an HOA building behind our back yard. With all the direct light plus the metropolitan light, it takes work and travel to find spaces where one can enjoy the dark and the night sky.

But would neighbors, the nearby HOA, and the suburb I live in want to decrease their light use or land use or change their regulations? It would take sustained collective effort to make these suburban skies dark.

What dozens of delivery drones in the suburbs sound like

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Residents in Richardson, Texas describe the sounds of delivery drones overhead:

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But in the Richardson neighborhoods near the Amazon distribution center, any joy about the innovation has been muted by the sound of dozens of drones, if not more than a hundred of them, flying by every day, sometimes so loud that they sound like flying lawn mowers. (Other companies, including Walmart, are also using delivery drones, but different types, in the area.)…

“We hear them zoom, zoom, zoom, back and forth from morning until past dinnertime,” said Nikki Anderson, whose extended family spotted the drone — and many more — one Friday earlier this month. She has long prized the serenity of her backyard, with its undulating pool and birds chirping from landscaping that included a shrub sculpted into the shape of a giant heart…

Kristi Graham, an administrator for a music education company, was one resident who complained to Amazon, upset about drones flying over her backyard, where her family swims and barbecues.

After her complaint, she said Amazon did change the route — to the front of her house…

When a protest was held in front of the Amazon distribution center in June, Ms. Puri took part. People waved signs like “Too low, too loud, too many.” And she said many Amazon delivery drivers, whose jobs may be at risk, honked their horns in support.

Suburbanites like tranquility in their yards, if they can get it. There is often some level of noise they put up with, including lawn care, local traffic given all the driving in the suburbs, and recreational noise (kids playing, all those pickleball players?).

These delivery drones represent a new source of noise. For residents who expect their yards to be retreats from the world or nature preserves, drones are an intrusion. An outside company is introducing a noise they do not want and the residents do not think the suburb’s regulations do enough.

What if this was the trade-off for suburban residents: would you accept delivery drones if it means fewer delivery trucks on the road? Suburbanites may not like noise but they also do not like traffic. If drones demonstrably reduce road traffic, would this make the drones and their noise palatable?

Themes across three books about suburbs I reviewed since February 2026

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I enjoy reading and I enjoy reading good work by scholars in areas I am interested in. This reading recently included three books about different aspects of the suburbs and metropolitan regions for which I wrote book reviews in recent months. Here are the three books:

The Right to Suburbia: Combating Gentrification on the Urban Edge by Willow S. Lung-Amam (my review here)

Crabgrass Catholicism: How Suburbanization Transformed Faith and Politics in Postwar America by Stephen M. Koeth (my review here)

Zoning Faith: How City Politics Shape Muslim Communities in Chicago by Sultan Tepe (my review here)

Even as each book addressed particular topics and settings (the first about gentrification and responses to it in three Washington, D.C. suburbs, the second about Long Island Catholic parishes in the immediate postwar suburban boom, and the third about three Muslim congregations approaching zoning and theology in the Chicago region), several themes stand out across the books:

  1. Suburban communities are diverse and dynamic. Each author describes significant changes that impact and are shaped by residents, businesses, local leaders, and religious groups. These communities, organizations, and residents are not the same as they were in the past. Suburbs are changing places.
  2. The topics each author discusses are both broader across places and highly local. Take Lung-Amam’s cases of suburban gentrification outside Washington, D.C. Gentrification and redevelopment takes place across a number of American communities. How exactly it plays out with local coalitions for and against the gentrification differs. Comparing the experiences of three suburbs can help us think broadly of what has or could happen in other suburban settings.
  3. The collective life of suburban communities and religious congregations is worth studying. There are thousands of such groups across the United States. They each impact more people on a regular basis. A majority of Americans live in suburbs. Many Americans are connected to religious congregations. To live in a particular suburb shapes all sorts of daily experiences and outcomes as does participation in a religious congregation.
  4. There are multiple methods that can help us understand these communities and changes. The ones utilized across these books include working with historical documents and archives, ethnography and observations, interviews, and surveys. To work to explain changes can lead to creativity in collecting and analyzing data on what has happened and how people understand it.

Describing in 1857 a small Chicago area community that would later become a larger suburb

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In 1857, C. W. Richmond and H. F. Vallette described the small Illinois community of Cottage Hill:

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The village of Cottage Hill is pleasantly situated on the line of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, sixteen miles west from Chicago. The first settler here was J. L. Hovey, who came from Painesville, Ohio. He built a small house in 1843, which he kept as a hotel, it being favorably known by the farmers of the Fox and Rock river counties, who then teamed their own produce to Chicago, as the ‘Hill Cottage.’ The ‘Hill’ proper lies half a mile from the railroad, and commands as fine a prospect of prairie, cultivated farms, groves, cottages, and railroad trains, as one could desire to behold. This place being but 15 1-2 miles from the centre of business in Chicago; having good water, pure air, and railroad trains hourly passing – all of which stop here – must soon become known to those who would find for themselves and families, at a convenient distance from the city, a retreat from the noise and dust of its hot and crowded streets. (194)

This sounds like a suburb. A beautiful natural setting. Railroad access to Chicago. A small community. Away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

However, at the time of the description, Cottage Hill (later Elmhurst) had very few people. The 1870 Census counted 329 residents. The train line offers access to Chicago but it is less than a decade old at this point. Commuting to Chicago is limited.

Elmhurst today is quite different. It has over 46,000 residents and the median household income is over $149,000. There is little open land on which to build. There is still greenery – laws, trees, parks – and road and train access to Chicago.

What this suggests to me is that long before the mass suburbanization of the twentieth century (Elmhurst had the highest percentage population increase in the 1920s), Americans had a suburban ideal. Even in the 1850s these two writers had a sense of the contrast between Cottage Hill and Chicago. They may not have envisioned the suburbs looking like they do today but some of the key elements are there long before suburban populations swelled.