They’re called “automobile suburbs,” boomtowns like Vernon Hills, Schaumburg and Tinley Park that have bustling retail centers, nice upscale subdivisions and plenty of roads to get around on.
They have just about everything, that is, except a thriving downtown.
Some of these towns, like Vernon Hills and Buffalo Grove, have never had a town square. Others, like Schaumburg and Tinley Park, have old town squares that suffered because of the growth of shopping malls.
But these communities all have one thing in common: Their success-and some might say their very existence-are totally dependent on the automobile. Now, however, at least some of these newer “automobile suburbs” are trying to recapture a flavor of the traditional downtown and bring back something rarely seen-pedestrians.
“These days, people just run down to the mall and get what they want. They don’t speak to anybody. It’s just, `Get your stuff and get out,’ ” said Tom Durkin, village planner in Tinley Park. “There’s more of a community feeling in a downtown area, more camaraderie. People actually stop and talk to each other. That’s what we want.”
Tinley Park is working on an overhaul of its old downtown, suffering since strip malls and quick-stop shopping spots began to pepper the outlying roadways. Schaumburg hopes finally to turn a junction technically noted on maps as “Schaumburg Center” for some 130 years into a bonafide town square.
And in Vernon Hills, officials have come up with an elaborate plan to create a town center with a picturesque pedestrian boulevard in the design.
Some local officials and business leaders hope that a vital, pedestrian-friendly commercial area will take some traffic off the streets and reduce road congestion.
But others suggest a more sentimental reason. People want something to refer to as “the heart of town,” they say, a focal point that provides both an identity and a sense of community.
“Next to family and religion, the community is one of the core beliefs of American culture,” said Michael Ebner, professor of history at Lake Forest College and observer of suburban trends. “People want to feel that sense of community.”
The town square, these civic leaders believe, is the answer.
“These towns have been spread out since the beginning,” said Alexandra Radtke of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. “A subdivision came into town and then another, and all of a sudden people said, `Hey, we need a fire station and a library.’ “
The boomtowns-even those that grew up around old, established farming communities-took on what many critics consider to be a generic look. Old downtowns foundered, and the cookie-cutter mega-malls replaced them as new town centers.
Of course, Schaumburg is not one to complain about that. Woodfield Mall has brought a steady stream of revenue to town and put the old farming town on the modern suburban map.
Yet officials there have been trying since 1987 to create a town square like those that anchor the tony North Shore towns of Wilmette, Winnetka and Lake Forest.
Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson gets a little sick of the stereotypical description of Schaumburg as “sterile.”
Yet even he believes it’s time for Schaumburg, which has long been the regional commerce center by virtue of the mall, to have its own town gathering place. Larson and leaders of other boomtowns frequently complain they are known as the place where the mall is, instead of as a cozy little borough where you might want to live.
“People stand at Woodfield and they say, `Ugh, who’d want to live here?’ ” said Larson. “Well, I don’t want to live at Woodfield. . . . A town center would identify Schaumburg as a village.”
Toward that end, the village has been negotiating with the local library and township government to move branches to the town center, at Schaumburg and Roselle Roads. The village also is in court to condemn the property of a frail strip-mall on one corner of the intersection so that it can be replaced by a more industrious venture.
Schaumburg also wants more bikeways and sidewalks that lead to the town square. The lack of paved sidewalks all but prohibits people from walking from one mall to the next in shopping complexes such as Woodfield and Hawthorn Center in Vernon Hills.
That’s why bikeways and walkways also are a critical part of the Vernon Hills plan. Village leaders have drawn up plans for a $900,000 project to build a 1-mile pedestrian boulevard just north of Hawthorn Center, a landscaped walkway that would connect the Cuneo historical museum to a nearby neighborhood, a new condominium complex and shopping centers.
Shops, a library and, one day, a commuter rail station would line the boulevard. Village officials hope it would encourage people to walk around to do their business instead of taking their cars. The village has applied for federal and state transportation funds for the project.
Experts say the Vernon Hills plan may combine all the critical elements for a successful town square, something that, so far, has eluded many Chicago-area boomtowns. Buffalo Grove’s attempt to create a downtown with a special tax-increment financing district so far has failed to produce a flourishing business area.
But the Vernon Hills plan would connect existing residential areas with booming commercial districts and include public services that have sustained downtowns like that of Naperville.
But for the town squares to succeed, experts say, people have got to get out of their cars.
“The progress you make against the automobile is incremental,” Ebner said. “It doesn’t happen overnight; it doesn’t even happen in a year or two. Old habits die hard.”
Nevertheless, Vernon Hills officials think people will, with the right incentives, get out of their cars.
“Even suburbanites would walk some place if given a chance,” said Craig Malin, assistant village manager.
