Da 'Burbs

Today was an interesting day for me. After a late night, I had to wake up early (on a Sunday, mind you!) for a variety of activities. I was doing some volunteering over here, and I'm going to be doing some meetings over there. Not that I'm complaining. My day gave me a chance to explore a place that I go to half as much as I'd like to and not nearly as much as I should go to. The suburbs. The north suburbs. Today, Lincolnwood and Deerfield.

We'll start with Lincolnwood. I like it a lot here. I think of Lincolnwood as a crossroads of sorts. It's the gateway from the bustling city of Chicago to its more relaxed northern suburbs. There's some large malls, filled with gems like the Jewey restaurant, "What's Cooking?" and a bunch of shady motels. "River Park Motel" and such. My grandma lived in Lincolnwood for forty plus years, and her block was the source of my entertainment on the weekends, including but not limited to playing "Spy", Hide n Seek, and just straight up run in circles.

Unfortunately, Lincolnwood is getting older. This fancy graph that I totally made myself and didn't Google gives the population by age of the town and compares it to the state of Illinois and the United States:



Take a look at how Lincolnwood has more than double the percentage of people 75 and over than the United States, while only about half the percentage of 25 to 34 year olds, a key demographic in any region, city, town, village, or large tent encampment.

Lincolnwood definitely isn't a Jewish town, but there are a significant amount of Jews in it. Speaking from that perspective, a lot of families (like my grandma's) settled in Lincolnwood and other north suburbs in the '60's. Their kids (like my mom) went to suburban schools. However, a decent amount of those kids (like my mom!) either moved into Chicago or to a different city altogether.

Not to say that this a definite, universal trend. Plenty of people, Jews and non-Jews, are chilling in the suburbs. But the data from Lincolnwood illustrates this trend.

On the other hand, Deerfield seems to be doing just lovely. Here's another pretty graph:


There are definitely more 45 to 54 year olds in Deerfield than the national average, but then again, there are also more people aged 0 to 17. So it's possible that the 45 to 54 year olds are parents. Now I've been to Deerfield like 4 times in my life, but from what I understand, she's doing pretty well for herself. I"m heading up there in a few minutes, so I'll be making some important, pseudo-scientific observations. My reports will be available to the public, so keep your eyes opened.


Graphs source: clrsearch.com