What suburb off the North Shore would best fit on the North Shore? (Chicago: fit in, sales)

[edsg25]

What suburb off the North Shore would best fit on the North Shore?

arguably the North Shore is Chicagoland's most evocative region; i can't think of a comparable area that presents such a singular image in one's mind (although perhaps the Fox River valley towns might be a second).

if you think of whatever qualities makes the North Shore the North Shore, which other suburb(s) in Chicago could easily fit in with these group of suburbs and match the character?

I'm not just talking wealth here; I'm suggesting the "feel" of the place. And while I recognize that "feel", I fully realize that places like Evanston, Kenilworth, Highland Park, and Lake Forest (among others) have lots of differences between them. (yet they all come across "North Shore")

for the record....I'm thinking in terms of both the "inland North Shore" communities (Glenview, Northbrook, Northfield, and Deerfield most come to mind) which obviously draw some of their attributes from proximity, as well as places throughout the metro area totally removed from the North Shore (i.e. could Oak Park fit because it is so much Evanston, or Hinsdale because it is so much like Winnetka?)

[chet everett]

Evocative??

[3Series]

Oswego, IL

[3Series]

Oh, Lake in the Hills, IL

[ToriaT]

Hinsdale. It could easily fit into the north shore.

[Larry Siegel]

I agree with Hinsdale. "Evocative," Chet - it evokes or produces feelings. Have you spent any time on the North Shore? It is nothing like the rest of the Chicago area or the rest of the Midwest for that matter.

[Tex?Il?]

Originally Posted by Larry Siegel

I agree with Hinsdale. "Evocative," Chet - it evokes or produces feelings. Have you spent any time on the North Shore? It is nothing like the rest of the Chicago area or the rest of the Midwest for that matter.

Really? How are they different from any other swath of affluent, wealthy suburbia?

The Oakbrook-Hinsdale area is just as affluent as the north shore, and other midwest metro areas do have their equivalents.

For example, while Detroit proper is on average much poorer than Chicago proper today, Detroits upper end suburbs look and feel just like the north shore.

I'm of course talking about the five Gross Pointes, as well as the Bloomfield-Birmingham area of Oakland County (Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield).

[chet everett]

I have spent quite a bit of time in the various towns of the North Shore and I do agree that for those lucky enough to be near enough to Lake Michigan to have benefit of the views or at least weather it is a plus but I disagree that it is "unlike the rest of the Chicago area" becuase I have spent enough time in just about all the desirable suburbs to say that any area with sufficiently dense foliage to provide shade in the summer and autumn color is going to be indistinguishable from 90% of the North Shore...

As to appropriateness of calling any physical place "evocative" I would simply point one toward these examples from Evocative Synonyms, Evocative Antonyms | Thesaurus.com -- even if we go with the synonym "nostalgic" it seems flat out weird to apply that to any real place. I mean MAYBE if you look at the "fakey" aspects of Long Grove I could see calling it "false nostalgia", like what a Disney set designer might create, but just because a town was built prior to WW II, done well, and largely has had others adhere to the asthetic of that period that is does not "produce feelings" in me or I think other normal people. There are a fair number of quite sterile appearing homes in most North Shore communities, and increasingly some well done "modernist" homes too, which makes the use of "nostalgia" for "evocative" even more troublesome -- certainly the kinds of "modernist" homes are not nostalagic for the baby boomers / kitsch lovers like the Atomic Ranch era homes of LA, and unless one get "nostalgic" for Don Johnson and Latin American drug lords of Miami in the late 90s the "waterfront modern" homes don't really have much emotional impact. Visually I'll bet I could find a couple blocks in pretty much ANY town that would fit into a John Hughes "title intro sequence" that could fool folks into thinking some place a stone's throw from Maywood Racetrack, Brookfield Zoo or the Indiana Dunes was "North Shore"...

[Larry Siegel]

As to appropriateness of calling any physical place "evocative" I would simply point one toward these examples from Evocative Synonyms, Evocative Antonyms | Thesaurus.com --

OK, OK :-) It wasn't the best choice of words but you know what he meant (since you wrote a long paragraph about it). The part of the North Shore that I live in looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting and the only way to replicate that atmosphere is to build a bunch of reasonably nice vernacular houses and wait 100 years. There are other, similar areas near other Midwestern cities but they are smaller because the cities themselves are smaller. Outside the Midwest, affluent older areas have quite a different look and feel.

[chet everett]

Going on looks alone there large chunks of Flossmoor that could be right up the street from Winneteka. Sadly for those home owners, though the tax bills might be similar the selling prices are a fraction... That combination does not make "an emotional impact" on me that such homes are "under priced" so much as "over taxed", though I suspect that there are multiple factors including the realtive active bargains that folks innate smaller older homes get, dearth of nonresidential development, nearly non-existant retail sales tax generating businesses, harder to support schools...

I guess at some level I just really dislike the "generic comparison" threads becuase almost never can someone justify the very different range of employment / education / lifestyle choices that come with deciding where one lives. I mean yes visually the nice Tudor and Georgian homes might make it hard to tell if you're in Glencoe, Hinsdale or Flossmoor, but that is not the only thing that drives choices. I suppose you could playnsome killer rounds of golf innanynof the towns. Sure if you work at the CBOT commute might be similar, but what happens if you work for a drug company near Lake Co? Or are a surgeon in the Med Center district on Chicago's west side, or are sales executive whose regional clientele span from West Lafeyette to Bloomington / Normal? Racial make-up? Religion? Lifestyle? Saying any one area is "tops for all"'is just not accurate