150 Best Illinois Towns to Call Home: Highland Park is No. 3

They say Chicago is “a city that works,” but the statement is even more accurate about one of its best suburbs, Highland Park.

“There isn’t a city in the state of Illinois that has a lower unemployment rate–4.6%–than Highland Park. And they are solid paying jobs as well. Households here bring in about $115,000 a year in combined income,” according to a survey conducted by Roadsnacks, a niche reporting website covering regions across the nation. Its most recent list, “The 150 Best Towns to Call Home” in Illinois, has our Highland Park at No. 3.

RoadSnacks.net, in analyzing 342 of the state’s most populous cities, recently ranked the best and worst places to live in Illinois using FBI crime data, the government census, Labor Bureau statistics and Sperling’s Best Places. The website’s rankings are based on unemployment, housing, median income, education, crime and population density. Many of these communities perennially rank high on annual Time, Money and Business Week lists of the Best Places to Live.

The list showed the average income for Highland Park families at $115,321 a year and the average house sale going for $453,600.

The list was favorable to Chicago’s north suburbs. Only Wilmette and Buffalo Grove had a higher ranking than Highland Park. Deerfield was fourth and Northbrook seventh. (I know, they aren’t the North “Shore” because they don’t border Lake Michigan, but they are nearby so I am going to list them anyway).

Highland Park has a lot to be proud of, and it’s hardly a surprise they rate so high on the list. There’s no shortage of fine architecture from the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Howard Van Doren Shaw, David Adler and others. It’s also the home of Ravinia Festival, which attracts the top names in music every summer.

The greatest basketball player of all-time lived in Highland Park during his prime. He still can’t sell his palace here.

There’s also our tie to popular culture, with several classic movies such as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Risky Business,” “Sixteen Candles” and others with locations in the city.

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