You tell me.

I would go with Schaumburg.

It has Motorola, as well as numerous other businesses. I don't think it has much of a downtown either.

But no individual suburb affects Chicago--they're all like little flies. It's the collective suburbia that gives Chicago problems

Anything in DuPage.

Interesting responses. Personally, I'm going to go with anything in McHenry, Kane, or Kendall counties, which represent the edge of our suburban sprawl. My parents just moved to McHenry county, and let me tell you, this place is the mecca for suburban SHIT! The traffic is horrible, its 55 miles from my place (so it will take well over an hour to drive out to the middle of nowhere for thanksgiving), and there are HUGE cookie cutter subdivisions, strip malls, TGI Friday's, Houlihans, the works going up everywhere.

Not only that, but every subdivision has 2,000,000 kids in it, where the parents have "deck parties" and the Dads are all wearing pleated khaki shorts, woven belts and $50 deck shoes they got at Payless, arguing with their wives about who is going to drive to the mall to pick up their punk teenager who is probably wearing an Allen Iverson jersey and a wallet chain, hoping that the three Corona's they drank that day aren't going to be too much to land them in DUI territory.

Schaumburg isn't that bad. I grew up there, and at bare minimum at least there are some good places out there to go. Same for Arlington Heights and Palatine, which are building up respectable downtowns. If I had to live in any suburb, Evanston would win, no question about it. After that, pick another North Shore suburb...

I think Schaumburg is a pain in the ass because, for some reason, the seem to represent some sort of competition when it comes to bringing big companies to the City. Another trouble-maker is Rosemont (which can hardly be considered a 'burb... but, it is nonetheless). If all the huge corporations in Schaumburg and Rosemont were in Chicago instead, it would be quite a kick for the City's economy.

Well, we could easily blame Schaumburg, and I see what you are saying, but we could also blame Hoffman Estates (Sears), Northbrook (All-State), Riverwoods (Morgan Stanley/Discover), Oakbrook (McDonalds) and on and on.

I would love to see one of the above companies move to Chicago. I have heard several people comment that it is hard to tap the younger workforce unless you are in the city.

Speaking of Schaumburg, I went to Navy Pier with my niece the other day so she could play on the rides, and Navy Pier basically looks like someone took a slice of Woodfield Mall and put it on the lake. Guess that comes with the territory of being a tourist trap.

A few other contenders not mentioned, Lincolnshire, Itasca, Downers Grove, Bolingbrook, Deerfield, and the suburb from hell.......Naperville.!!!!!

I would have to go with the two adjacent suburbs, Los Angeles & Silverlake, that are very annoying places. However, due to huge traffic back ups on I-88 and the recent closing of LA's metra station, those areas aren't affecting us nearly as much as they used to.

It's good that Chicagoland is made up of dozens of suburbs, rather than a few big ones. Collectively, they may be thorny, but individually, they're mostly not that bad. Schaumberg's pretty big. Aurora? Des Plaines?

I'm learning more and more that the location of big corporations in the suburbs isn't as important as I thought it was. What really matters for a global city is to have the numerous services that help drive the world's economy, and to have the think-tanks and coming together of ideas. That's what Chicago has, and that's what really counts.

Besides, a few big shots still come to Chicago. Boeing, BP spinoff, etc. And the corporations that are in the suburbs still deal a lot with Chicago--it's not like they have cut themselves off--because they can't

You guys are forgetting the two burbs that have directly screwed things for Chicago the past 25 years: Bensenville and Elk Grove Village.

Those two are the leaders of the Suburban O'Hare Commission, or SOC. The SOC has been responsable for the ridiculous Peotone idea, and it has successfully blocked all O'Hare expansion proposals since the 80's with the help of republican governors. Its residents move in and then complain of noise, making the city pay for sound proofing. Of course, both of them rely on O'Hare for their economy and their entire well being.. but you can't be a suburb without sucking the good out of something and then bitching now can you?

What has this done to Chicago? O'Hare is the most delayed airport in the country. Atlanta now has the busiest airport in the world in terms of passengers (the more important number), and as a DIRECT result, Atlanta's economy is booming. Because of O'Hare's troubles, airlines are avoiding it. Our hometown United is now in bankruptcy, one reason because of O'Hare problems well before 9/11. O'Hare is now jammed, with no room for growth or improvement, and it's directly hurting the economy, causing Chicago to lose billions in economic impact.

Study the issue for just a little, and you will be enraged at Bensenville and Elk Grove, if not DuPage in general. Proposals to expand O'Hare have been in the works since the late 70's, but like I said, republican suburban puppet governors kept blocking it. There is no other reason for Chicago's aviation troubles, just the burbs and the assholes living there. If you think there is one, I'd like to hear it.

You guys are forgetting the two burbs that have directly screwed things for Chicago the past 25 years: Bensenville and Elk Grove Village.

Those two are the leaders of the Suburban O'Hare Commission, or SOC. The SOC has been responsable for the ridiculous Peotone idea, and it has successfully blocked all O'Hare expansion proposals since the 80's with the help of republican governors. Its residents move in and then complain of noise, making the city pay for sound proofing. Of course, both of them rely on O'Hare for their economy and their entire well being.. but you can't be a suburb without sucking the good out of something and then bitching now can you?

What has this done to Chicago? O'Hare is the most delayed airport in the country. Atlanta now has the busiest airport in the world in terms of passengers (the more important number), and as a DIRECT result, Atlanta's economy is booming. Because of O'Hare's troubles, airlines are avoiding it. Our hometown United is now in bankruptcy, one reason because of O'Hare problems well before 9/11. O'Hare is now jammed, with no room for growth or improvement, and it's directly hurting the economy, causing Chicago to lose billions in economic impact.

Study the issue for just a little, and you will be enraged at Bensenville and Elk Grove, if not DuPage in general. Proposals to expand O'Hare have been in the works since the late 70's, but like I said, republican suburban puppet governors kept blocking it. There is no other reason for Chicago's aviation troubles, just the burbs and the assholes living there. If you think there is one, I'd like to hear it.

^I agree. But these towns, as much as I hate to say it, have a right to not want their homes bulldozed for an airport. That being said, we can all at least rejoice that the O'Hare expansion is now locked into state policy (with Chicago having the right to condemn property near O'Hare airport) and can no longer be vetoed by a future governor. Once the FAA, in their hopelessly long and laborious process, approve the expansion work will get underway.

As far as Atlanta, sure it's competing with O'Hare but Chicago has nothing to fear from that place. In the end, even if Peotone is built it will service 1 purpose--increasing Chicago's air capacity, and that's all that matters in the end to keep our city competitive. Whether space is added at O'Hare or somewhere else, it's the space itself that counts.

Atlanta now has the busiest airport in the world in terms of passengers (the more important number)

It isn't the more important number. Airports recieve most of their income from landing, parking, and take-off fees. The Passengers themselves contribute fairly little to the bottom line.

And expanding O'Hare is an asinine idea. It will cost ass-loads to build, and though expansion will make movement easier, it will not increase capacity significantly. Major hubs, like O'Hare, have a lot of infrastructure underneath all that nicely mowed grass. This has to be removed.

Runways are another issue. A runway is a complex piece of pavement. It is as far beyond a highway (another complex pavement) as the highway is beyond a sidewaly (just poured conctere.) It takes a lot of effort to tear up a runway, especially one cleared to land 747-400's. Building new 10,000ft runways takes at least 5 years and millions of dollars. In other words, Cha-Ching.

SOC will not sink O'hare, at least not this time. The sheer cost of the undertaking will kill it.

Urban Politician is 100% correct. Bensonville and Elk Grove look at Chicago as the main competition. It's not. It's Washington, DC. And the feds, who told Chicago to get its shit together on this one, are not playing games.

On a strictly personal note, no one is his right mind wants to see Elk Grove and Bensonville decimated. And probably they won't be.

This O'Hare nonsense is the same that used to come up over noise problems caused by the airport in the NW suburbs.

Hey folks in the Land-Beyond-O'Hare: the airport was there long before the vast majority of your land was developed. In fact, folks, O'Hare was exactly the reason your land was developed. Elk Grove has gotten absolutely rich off O'Hare. And if it was so worried about the airport expanding, why did it allow so many businesses into its business parts that feed of of O'Hare in the first place?

O'Hare is NOT Chicago's airport. It's Chicagoland's airport. It offers the same services to the suburbs as the city; and the suburbs depend on it every bit as much as Chicago does. So in reality, it's not Elk Grove and Bensonville vs. Chicago....no it's Elk Grove and Bensonville vs. Chicago and Evanston and Oak Park and Arlington Hts and Naperville and Northbrook and Skokie and...............

That's so true though, I still want to see O'hare expand. The location is perfect.

Going back to the suburbs thing, I think North Shore suburbs are kinda becoming like Chicago North shore neighborhoods. Between them there's a lot of moving in and out and a lot of mingling. Those suburbs to the northwest, west and south are the real thorns. They are the product of useless sprawl, I don't like it. I don't think the North burbs are really sprawl areas- most have been established since way back and they are becoming as densly populated as Chicago North Shore. Especially Evanston and Skokie.

I don't think the North burbs are really sprawl areas- most have been established since way back and they are becoming as densly populated as Chicago North Shore. Especially Evanston and Skokie.

The North suburbs in Cook County are not sprawling too bad but the north suburbs in Lake County are sprawling like nobodies business. Whenever I drive up to Mundelein or Libertyville it is just a damn sea of new pre-fab houses. It really pisses me off because there was an apple orchard in the Lake county town of Wauconda that was really beautiful and it is the latest plot of land up there to fall under the developers bulldozer. Damn scavengers!
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