The future is company towns! Everything old is new again.

https://www.experiencethedistrict.com/

Glenview was a repurposing of the old naval air station, and I think they did a pretty good job with it (even though it feels vaguely creepy and backlot-y here and there). I don't know what the Schaumburg one used to be, but trying to do New Urbanism without even having a train station doesn't seem like it would work. The whole idea of Schaumburg as a suburb was that it was designed for cars and built along expressways rather than railroads. I think it's a uniquely difficult place to reverse-engineer for walkability.

https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20210325/x201cit-needs-to-be-morex201d-250-million-redevelopment-of-hawthorn-mall-officially-begins

The renderings look exactly like Neo-Randhurst. I wish them well.

I spent a lot of time at Hawthorn in the past, but I realize that most malls are on the way out. There will always be a place for Woodfield, but everything else? We have to come up with something else. I hope we can have public spaces again.

I always thought deer park was an overly ambitious build out, sort of in the sticks.

I like these islands of compact downtown community. It's great for empty nesters, young couples and singles who can't quite afford the real "Main Street" communities with the metra stops.

I don't think it's that far out in the sticks now. I'm just barely old enough to remember when Rand north of Dundee was kind of where Here There Be Monsters territory began, but I'd say Deer Park is firmly within suburbia now, albeit the roomier Lake County variant. And now there's a Woodman's in freakin' Volo. Go figure.

The intersection of Rand and 120 with the McDonald's gas station and the Fratello's is Volo. I thought Lakemoor doesn't start till you go west on 120. I don't know, I rarely went home that way.

The renderings look exactly like Neo-Randhurst. I wish them well.

I spent a lot of time at Hawthorn in the past, but I realize that most malls are on the way out. There will always be a place for Woodfield, but everything else? We have to come up with something else. I hope we can have public spaces again.

If you don't know about Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin'