Tag Archives: suburbs

Suburban farmers markets as “multi-purpose civic events”

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The farmers markets of the Chicago suburbs could be described this way:

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More and more suburbs are embracing farmers markets in ways that go beyond the sale of produce. They have evolved into multi-purpose civic events — a proving ground for small businesses, a way for communities to advertise their services, a showcase for local musical talent, a source of food for area pantries and a draw for local eateries and shops.

Three thoughts in response:

  1. How much of this is due to the relative lack of civic and public spaces in American suburbs? If people wanted to gather in suburbs, how attractive or available are non-private or non-commercial spaces? These farmers markets provide settings for people to shop, eat, and gather. Such spaces are lacking in the suburbs.
  2. The weather has something to do with this. People want to be out in warmer weather. Fresh produce is available at this time of year. What would be the equivalent of this from November through March? Could there be a cold weather version of this in Chicago suburbs?
  3. Economic development is a consideration here. People spend money at farmers markets. They also may spend more in the surrounding area, turning a farmers market visit into an additional trip to a store or restaurant. For suburbs with downtowns, a centrally located farmers market can add to what local officials often hope is a vibrant and walkable downtown.

There are numerous suburban farmers markets in the Chicago region so it will be interesting to see which thrive and what kinds of civic relationships and initiatives they might lead to.

The different aspects of American suburban living through the eyes of European World Cup fans

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An article about reactions of Europeans to the American suburbs circles around a definition of suburbs or suburban life. Perhaps it is about space or being wealthy:

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“It’s spacious,” he said. “You go here for your shopping, and there for your dentist. People are so rich here. I think that’s why they can be so nice.”

Maybe it is about space and fast food:

In recent days, social media has been filled with videos of Europeans gawking at the staples of suburban American life—a two-car garage, a walk-in closet, a second refrigerator. One Brit went viral for trying Chick-fil-A for the first time: “That was absolutely banging,” he said. In another, he toured the inside of an American fire station, marveling at the size of the trucks and the station itself. “This is nuts, honestly,” he said. 

Or is it about portions at American restaurants?

Variations in portion size have become an established part of any discussion of cultural difference. One 2024 study showed that American portion sizes are 42% larger than those in France. A large McDonald’s drink in the U.S. holds almost twice as much—30 ounces—as a large in France or the U.K.

No, it is about consumerism and big box stores:

Some Dutch fans in Kansas City were impressed—but confused—by the scale of U.S. consumerism. Dutch fan Max Hall and his friend didn’t know why there needed to be two Home Depots within a 10-mile radius. When they entered a Walmart in search of new clothes (they lost their luggage in transit), they wound up spending a whole hour in the store, lost in the aisles. Fellow Dutch fans Mike Tol and Demi Tol struggled to navigate Costco.

I have written about the seven reasons Americans love suburbs and a few show up in this story. American single-family home are big. Driving and a middle-class life are linked to homes, shopping, and eating out.

This article discuses cultural differences between the United States and Europe and uses the suburbs as a a stand-in for American culture more broadly. A majority of Americans live in suburbs and millions of Americans are familiar with the lifestyle described in the article. The stadium in Kansas City is within the big city’s boundaries but is in a more sprawling area.

The descriptions above reference a particular American lifestyle. It may be found in the suburbs. It may also be found in cities and rural areas. It hints at things Americans experience everyday and may not think much about about. (Just as one example, see this post about the wonders of Walmart.)

And as the article notes, it may be one thing to briefly see what daily American life could be and another to think about choices societies have made and consider the tradeoffs. How easy is it for people to around the world to visit another place and then give up their life to move to that new place because they see something they want to experience? Or how many of the fans in the article go home and see their daily life in a new way? Seeing the American suburbs while on a trip for the World Cup may be one thing; how one responds could be a very different thing.

1 day until Every Somewhere Sacred: writing and waiting, learning and doing

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Writing a book does not just involve putting words on a page, or, more accurately, typing letters into computer software. It involves thinking, discussing, doing. I find it hard to write something without first turning it through in my mind over and over as well as living out the ideas and the questions. Here are two examples from the process of creating Every Somewhere Sacred.

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First, I live in the suburbs of the United States. These are unique settings with particular histories. A majority of Americans live there, including many American Christians. (Read Sanctifying Suburbia for more on this.) What does difference, if any, should it make to be Christian and live in the suburbs?

Thinking about this is important. It is easy to live a suburban life, including doing Christian things as part of this life. Doing is also important: Christians are to use their minds and their bodies as they live out their faith.

Second, lots of American communities are home to Christian congregations and organizations. How do these Christian groups shape places and land? Are they primarily focused on their own internal activities or do they contribute to the flourishing of communities and places?

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I ask this as I live and work in a suburb partly known for its religious character. In addition to being home to a known evangelical college, it is home to 40+ churches and many evangelical organizations are in the suburb or nearby. Does this mean the character of the community is different in terms of how people interact (interpersonally and collectively) and how land and creation are treated?

I hope the years spent working with Ben on writing this book also influenced how I act. My question about living in the suburbs or Christians meeting together in certain locations could apply to any place and setting. We address both thinking and doing in Every Somewhere Sacred. We argue we need new tools, metaphors, and lenses to help us recognize what is going on in lands and places and to see what God is doing. We want to act with these lenses, listening to others, open to what we might have missed, and acting in ways that are consistent with God’s mission. If we can see land and place as a gift, sacrament, kin, or home, it can prompt us to better participate in what God is already doing in these settings.

5 days until Every Somewhere Sacred: caring for and learning from a suburban yard

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The yard for my suburban house is 0.26 acres. On all four sides, the house is surrounded by grass, bushes and trees, and wildlife. This is part of the American Dream: a suburban single-family home for a family framed by green grass and attractive landscaping. All that nature in the yard allows space for kids to play in a private setting free from threats. Or perhaps it is about keeping the lawn extra green and finely trimmed and completely free of weeds and leaves so that the nature around the home leads to a higher return on investment.

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What could it look like for Christians to expand their imagination about the nature around them rather than defaulting to American land stories and half-truths? In Every Somewhere Sacred, Ben Norquist and I consider better ways to engage with God’s plans for land and places.

What might that mean for my yard? It is certainly not “wild” land. Humans have been in this area for a long time, including Indigenous people and white settlers starting in the 1830s. This particular plot of land was farmed for decades before a developer started putting up houses in the early 1970s. As they put up houses, they shaped other features of the land, putting in a pond that some of the homes back up to, leaving numerous older trees along the main road through the neighborhood, and situating other homes to back up to a public park.

The land is not there just to serve my financial interests or the specific needs of my household. My yard is connected to other yards and it part of a broader ecosystem. Some animals and plants thrive in suburban settings. Others do not. I regularly see rabbits and have occasionally spotted foxes. Chickadees, robins, cardinals, red-tailed hawks, cormorants, and Canadian geese can be seen and heard. Insects are around. We have a small, simple garden that requires weeding and watering. I do not fertilize my yard or use weed killer. We occasionally trim the bushes and trees.

I want the nature around me to flourish. I am created, nature is created. My yard presents a small opportunity for me to learn from and with Creation about God and the world. We can tend, cultivate, plant, tear up when needed. We can work with nature rather than just extracting value from it.

In our book, we describe four different lenses different Christians have developed to help us better understand the physical world around us: land as gift, sacrament, kin, and home. If I took time with each of these and applied them to my own yard, what could I see differently? As I retrieve a basketball from the rose bushes next to the driveway planted by previous occupants of our home or when I drag the hose to the backyard to water our garden or when I put down mulch in the flower beds or when I hear a woodpecker in a nearby tall tree, how might I better see God and the world?

The Chicago Bears, like numerous pro sports teams, on their way to being a suburban team

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As the Chicago Bears plan for a new stadium, it appears one fact is clear: they will end up playing in the suburbs of the city of Chicago. While the current battle for the stadium may appear to be between Illinois and Indiana, the team ends up in the suburbs of the Chicago region either way. And they would not be alone in inhabiting a suburban stadium: twelve NFL teams already play in the suburbs. (For comparison, several MLB teams play in the suburbs, three NHL teams play in the suburbs, and only one NBA team plays in the suburbs.)

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But you could argue that the Chicago Bears were already a suburban team even though they played in the city at Wrigley Field and then Soldier Field. The team has had its headquarters in suburban Lake Forest for decades. The McCaskey family lives in the Chicago suburbs, with Virginia McCaskey passing away in 2025 after residing in Des Plaines for decades.

And many of the team’s fans are suburbanites. The city of Chicago peaked in population in the 1950 census with over 3.6 million residents. As the city’s population declined, the metropolitan region continued to grow. In the 2020 census, the metropolitan statistical area had over 9.6 million residents, meaning that over two-thirds of the region’s population was in the suburbs. Who is tuning in to the games? Who is buying tickets and merchandise? Who is weighing in with their opinions about where the Bears should play? (And this is true across American metropolitan regions: stadiums may be in big cities but the majority of residents and fans are in the suburbs.)

The Chicago Bears will likely be playing in the suburbs soon enough. This will echo what has already happened numerous times over in the region: residents and businesses moved out of the city to the suburbs, setting up life or operations where the majority of residents live.

Trying to convince suburbanites that they should accept mid-size housing in their single-family home neighborhoods

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After the Illinois legislature did not pass the governor’s housing plans, one housing leader said he had this goal:

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Moving forward, Wolfenstein said he’s looking to draw a clearer picture for lawmakers of what midsize housing could look like in their communities — two-flats, townhomes, and other structures that could resemble single-family homes, he said.

When people in the American suburbs purchase a single-family home, they are used to having that home surrounded by other single-family homes. There might be townhomes or condos or apartments nearby but zoning in the United States typically separates different kinds of housing from each other. It is not common to find a suburban family-house next to a two-flat which is next to a townhouse.

How would suburbanites respond to midsize housing in their neighborhoods? They would likely talk about threats to property values. They might mention how it affects the character of their community. They could describe how they moved to their home because they liked the neighborhood as it was. These are common responses to potential changes in or near neighborhoods of single-family homes.

I also wonder how much the responses of suburbanites would be guided by their perceptions of who might live in midsize housing.

So could the midsize housing be designed in such a way that it does not look different than the single-family housing? Would it be at certain price points such that current residents do not feel threatened? It would be interesting to see the proposals and then get a sense of how many suburban residents and leaders would want to get behind such a vision.

Switching the Spelling Bee from a suburban convention center to a downtown theater

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A change this year to the location of the Scripps National Spelling Bee caused some concern:

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The bee’s move from a suburban convention center to Constitution Hall was a point of contention for spellers and their families because of inconveniences it caused. But Thursday’s finals had a lively atmosphere, with more intimate seating and better sight lines bringing the crowd closer to the action, and the broadcast got a reboot with ESPN’s Mina Kimes hosting alongside longtime analyst Paul Loeffler.

A bit more on the history of the location of the spelling bee:

At the prior venue, the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, spellers moved freely throughout the building, roaming between their hotel rooms, the ballroom that housed the competition stage and a massive food court where they grabbed quick meals between last-minute study sessions…

The bee began in 1925 and was held at a series of Washington hotels before it moved to the suburbs in 2011.

Having been to a number of convention centers, I could see why some might have preferred an option where everything was in one place. Convention centers can be sprawling structures that are intended to help visitors keep their focus on the convention.

But I was intrigued to see that the shift this year was from a suburban convention center to a downtown theater. The DAR Constitution Hall opened in 1929 and is near numerous important Washington, D.C. buildings. Suburban convention centers might have more space for their structures and could offer easier driving access. Additionally, a majority of Americans live in suburbs and might be more familiar with suburban settings. (Sounds like a research question: do Spelling Bee contestants tend to come from urban, suburban, or rural settings? Are there patterns in the locations where they live?)

How about a compromise: holding the Spelling Bee at an urban convention center? These exist as well.

The suburban Illinois lawmakers and leaders for and against the BUILD plan

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With the BUILD plan under consideration in Illinois, some suburban leaders have announced they are for or against what the bill would provide for:

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Democratic state Sen. Laura Ellman of Naperville is among the plan’s proponents. Ellman and other lawmakers staged a news conference Tuesday in Springfield to outline a slew of proposals aimed at making housing more affordable for owners and renters…

Other suburban sponsors and cosponsors of BUILD-related legislation include state Sens. Mark Walker of Arlington Heights, Adriane Johnson of Buffalo Grove and Cristina Castro of Elgin.

Aligned against them are lawmakers including Republican state Rep. Martin McLaughlin of Barrington Hills; municipal leaders in South Barrington, Barrington Hills, Algonquin and other suburbs; and groups including the Illinois State Association of Counties, the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference and the Northwest Municipal Conference.

At a city council meeting earlier this month, Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli said the BUILD proposals promote housing density, not affordability…

McLaughlin hopes pressure from municipal leaders opposed to BUILD will be strong enough to persuade enough Democrats in the General Assembly to break with Pritzker and oppose the legislation.

Illinois has a lot of suburban residents (as does the United States as a whole). I would interested to hear from suburban lawmakers what they are hearing from these residents and voters. How many are for these proposed changes, how many are against? If people think their property values might be threatened, they tend to respond. At the same time, those seeking out housing might also be making their voices heard.

On a related note, if suburban voters are critical in national elections because of the number of them plus the number of suburbanites who might be swayed by particular issues or leaders, might legislative votes in Illinois come down to suburban representatives?

It would also be interesting to hear if there local leaders and communities who see such legislation as providing an opportunity for growth and change in their community. The population in the Chicago region and Illinois has been relatively stagnant in recent decades. Could adding more housing provide a new opportunity to add residents and status?

Billy Joel and “The Great Suburban Showdown”

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I have not listened to an early Billy Joel album for a long time. In my quest to find more music that explicitly references suburbs, I recently ran into his song “The Great Suburban Showdown,” track number three on his 1974 album Streetlife Serenade. The character in the song is headed home for a visit and this is the chorus:

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I’ve been gone for a while
Made some changes in my style
And they say you can’t go home anymore
When the streets all look the same
And I’ll have to play the game
We’ll all sit around in the kitchen chairs
With the tv on, with the neighbors there

The song describes several common images of American suburbs:

  1. Family life in suburbia. Home is where mom and dad are. There are barbeques, neighbors.
  2. Things look the same and the suburbs have not changed.
  3. In contrast to #1 and #2, the main character is now living somewhere else. He has made changes to his life while the suburban life still looks and feels the same. Suburban life is dull and predictable but not other kinds of places are not like this.

The song refers to a “suburban showdown” where all this will come into conflict. Joel himself grew up in suburban Long Island; could he be referring in this song to his own experiences?

Visiting the many farmers markets in the Chicago suburbs

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As the weather warms up, residents of the Chicago suburbs can visit many farmers markets. This list shows 54 options held across the week and across the region.

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From my study of suburban communities and their character, here is what I would want to know about all these farmers markets: what makes them unique from each other? Are there features that connect them to the suburb in which they are being held? Here are a few factors that could influence this:

  1. The setting in which they are held. Is the market in a parking lot? A special space constructed for this? Near historic buildings? The setting could help set the tone and indicate the importance of the market.
  2. Are the goods sold significantly different across markets? Do some markets specialize in certain items compared to others? How much do the vendors differ across markets?
  3. Who is the intended customer? This could be tied to the goods sold and the setting as well as other things offered at the market. Do some try to attract kids? Which ones are dog friendly? How do the markets approach customers with different levels of resources?
  4. How does the farmer’s market fit in with the other events in the suburban community? Is the market the one regular event or is there a full calendar of options for residents and visitors to choose from?
  5. Who comes to the farmers market? Are these primarily for residents or do these draw more widely from neighboring suburbs?

This could be a research project with dozens of markets to visit and examine.