Skylines in Chicagoland outside of Chicago itself?

[RH3Flatlander]

Evanston, Schaumburg, and Rosemont definitely have viable skylines. A few other suburbs have expressway adjacent high rises such as Downers Grove, Lisle, Naperville, and Oak Brook. Collar cities like Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, and Gary have older, smaller downtown skylines (think 5-15 stories).

[RH3Flatlander]

I would say Evanston and maybe Joliet are the only suburbs with what one might call a true central business district that goes beyond serving as a TOD unit for greater Chicago or as a mere municipal civic center. All of the other high rises throughout the suburban region are somewhat independent buildings scattered all over or placed near an expressway.

[IrishIllini]

There are a few suburban office clusters with buildings ranging 10-15 stories, but Chicagoland is mostly centered around Chicago. A lot of people in CvC have been obsessed with pointing this out lately. Envy.

[BigLake]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

Not super tall, but Oak Park has a bit of a cluster with four twenty story-ish buildings in or near downtown Oak Park. Another 20 story building is under construction and close to topping off in downtown.

Interesting to see that Oak Park is developing a skyline. If you look east from, say, the DSW in RF, Oak Park has a bona fide skyline. Scanning from the Whitehall building to the north (~13 stories), Holley Court (~15) to Vantage (21) to Oak Park Station (20 stories) to Mills Tower (19), (though you can't see the latter from this vantage point), and somewhat impressive infill in between, OP actually is turning into a mini Evanston (tic).

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by BigLake

Interesting to see that Oak Park is developing a skyline. If you look east from, say, the DSW in RF, Oak Park has a bona fide skyline. Scanning from the Whitehall building to the north (~13 stories), Holley Court (~15) to Vantage (21) to Oak Park Station (20 stories) to Mills Tower (19), (though you can't see the latter from this vantage point), and somewhat impressive infill in between, OP actually is turning into a mini Evanston (tic).

There maybe another tower in the works too: New tower planned for downtown Oak Park | Articles | News | OakPark.com

[asliarun]

Originally Posted by BigLake

Interesting to see that Oak Park is developing a skyline. If you look east from, say, the DSW in RF, Oak Park has a bona fide skyline. Scanning from the Whitehall building to the north (~13 stories), Holley Court (~15) to Vantage (21) to Oak Park Station (20 stories) to Mills Tower (19), (though you can't see the latter from this vantage point), and somewhat impressive infill in between, OP actually is turning into a mini Evanston (tic).

That's because Oak Park (as well as Chicago downtown itself) is adopting the Evanston model. See this article.

Evanston is basically moving away from a typical car oriented suburb to a TOD or "transit oriented suburb" that has a big focus on walkability, discourages car ownership (or at least car parking), and encourages high population density. In other words, a self-sufficient mini satellite city. If you read the article, Evanston was facing a crisis of sorts when other suburban neighborhoods like Skokie opened large shopping malls like Old Orchard. Suburbs like Skokie are also much better connected to expressways. What Evanston did have in its favor was excellent connectivity to downtown Chicago as well as a large local university (Northwestern). It was already denser than most other suburbs due to this reason, and the "core" was much larger than most other suburban cores.

However, instead of focusing on suburban infrastructure and on cars, Evanston embraced the opposite and chose to focus on further increasing density. They passed laws to further reduce the number of parking slots needed for developers and encouraged builders to build taller buildings. This has been fairly successful for Evanston, and also plays well with Evanston's existing strengths. Evanston now has a legitimately decent cluster of high rises, most of them apartments, but a few high rise office buildings as well.

Seeing this, Oak Park and Chicago downtown are also embracing this model. You can realistically not own a car and live in Evanston downtown without any problems. Or if you are a young family, you could get away with just having one family car if you live in downtown Evanston.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by asliarun

That's because Oak Park (as well as Chicago downtown itself) is adopting the Evanston model. See this article.

Evanston is basically moving away from a typical car oriented suburb to a TOD or "transit oriented suburb" that has a big focus on walkability, discourages car ownership (or at least car parking), and encourages high population density. In other words, a self-sufficient mini satellite city. If you read the article, Evanston was facing a crisis of sorts when other suburban neighborhoods like Skokie opened large shopping malls like Old Orchard. Suburbs like Skokie are also much better connected to expressways. What Evanston did have in its favor was excellent connectivity to downtown Chicago as well as a large local university (Northwestern). It was already denser than most other suburbs due to this reason, and the "core" was much larger than most other suburban cores.

However, instead of focusing on suburban infrastructure and on cars, Evanston embraced the opposite and chose to focus on further increasing density. They passed laws to further reduce the number of parking slots needed for developers and encouraged builders to build taller buildings. This has been fairly successful for Evanston, and also plays well with Evanston's existing strengths. Evanston now has a legitimately decent cluster of high rises, most of them apartments, but a few high rise office buildings as well.

Seeing this, Oak Park and Chicago downtown are also embracing this model. You can realistically not own a car and live in Evanston downtown without any problems. Or if you are a young family, you could get away with just having one family car if you live in downtown Evanston.

I was able to get along without a car in Evanston before kids and we only had one car once we had a child. I lived in Evanston from 1964 to 2000. The car was used for dh to commute to Des Plaines. I didn't need a car for myself as the *el* and the PACE buses were sufficient when I was not walking. I also biked everywhere with a bike seat for the single child. That became less feasible when we had two children though.