'Downtown' Evergreen: The There That's Nowhere

I never used to think about downtowns. When I was a kid, the downtown of my hometown in Oregon, Roseburg, was where we went to buy clothes and school supplies. As a Cub Scout, we used to hike up in the hills and snag mistletoe out of the oak trees, break it up, bag it and sell it on the sidewalks downtown.

Then along came the mall, which was built on what was then the outskirts of town. The J.C. Penney and the Sears left downtown, and Roseburg's commercial center effectively scattered in several directions. As you would expect, downtown suffered, although it has recovered to some extent in recent years. City planners created a historic district and encouraged boutique shops and restaurants to locate there, while the local chamber pushed a "shop historic downtown" campaign.

I recognize that suburbs are different. But older suburbs were towns once. And some suburbs have tried to re-create their downtowns. Oak Lawn, Arlington Heights, Palatine, Naperville, Tinley Park and, to a less successful extent, Park Forest. They're doing this for various reasons. It's commercially smart, for one, but more importantly downtowns are traditionally the focus of the community. They host businesses, provide living and office space and contain community gathering places.

I think Evergreen Park could have a nice downtown. Instead we have … no real downtown to speak of. For the record, as a relative newcomer, I consider "downtown" Evergreen Park to be roughly 95^th Street and Kedzie Ave., plus four or five blocks north, south, east and west along those two streets. That's where village hall, the library and the highest concentration of commercial and residential development is. But also for the record, I don't consider strip malls on each of the four corners of the most prominent intersection in the village to be a "nice" downtown. As this area has redeveloped, we seem to have paid more attention to parking than to planning a place people might want to spend time.

It was not always this way. No one would have mistaken Evergreen Park for one of the old railroad suburbs, but Evergreen Park had businesses on all four corners, local businesses built out to the sidewalk – the old Panos bar/liquor store, and the lighting store come to mind. Now we have strip malls. Purely from a planning perspective, this is an outdated way of thinking about development. The car-dependent way. Progressive towns are restoring and re-creating the best of the past: town centers. A town center is not a mall to which everyone drives. A town center is a commercial, cultural, governmental and recreational focal point for a community.

Rather than throwing up strip malls in the hope of attracting whatever businesses we can, Evergreen Park should be creating a town center with businesses on the ground floor and offices and residences on upper floors. I'm not talking five- or 10-story buildings, I'm talking two or three. We should be lobbying the state to make 95th Street two lanes each direction with angle-in parking. There isn't going to be this much traffic forever. Maybe within 10 years, a six lane street will just be a lot of empty asphalt. We should be building to the sidewalk, creating a walkable environment that can accommodate cars, rather than a drive-able environment that barely tolerates the brave pedestrian.

But that's just my vision for downtown Evergreen Park. What's yours?