Chicago Tribune: Reluctantly, a small town grows into city's frontier

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0511140187nov14,1,7145430.story?coll=chi-business-hed

'Friday night football is a tradition in Hampshire, where purple flags wave downtown as a sign of small-town support for high school sports.

In the one-stoplight village in northwest Kane County, the building that houses Hampshire High and Middle Schools has been a center of social activity since the 1950s.

But the explosive growth of Chicago's suburban frontier is bringing new faces to the schools; the campus is filled to capacity with 1,046 students in Grades 6 through 12. Talk of a new high school is only one of the changes that longtime residents fear are coming to their community.

"We're just about at our limit," said Principal Jim Wallis, who has been at the school for 13 years. "We may be able to go one more year without a major change, but we're very close, if not at our limit."

As Hampshire changes from a small town into a bedroom suburb, some residents worry about a loss of the sense of community that is nurtured by seeing familiar faces in churches and stores and rooting for the high school football team. The football season ended Nov. 5 with a defeat in the second round of the state playoffs.'


Anyone have simliar stories? Know people in Hampshire?

People say they want to get away from the city, but they bring chain stores, and traffic, and other city problems with 'em. And they eat up good, productive farm land in the process. And pave over it, and cause flooding and related problems.

It's inching its way here, and since I absolutely DO NOT want to live in a suburb, I'll probably end up moving...back to Iowa.

And what's going to happen to all these car-dependent suburbs when we run out of petroleum?

We moved into our area (annexed into the village proper another story) which had 2100 some odd people in 1985. Up to 6200+ in 2000 and a special census puts us at 9000+ as of this past August. Schools, while still excellent, are bursting, again. Since we moved here, they have built 2 new schools and immediately after completing the schools, put on additions. K-8 has 2000 kids now. High school (4 feeder schools but one is realllyy small), is pushing capacity again after just completing another addition in 2003. They are in the process of purchasing 100 acres to build a new high school as there is zero room for expansion at the current high school. Greedy developers come in as they know schools are good and 2 of the bigger developers build crappy houses, future slums. BUT people are desperate to get their kids into good schools. Village has refused to rezone (like next door to me) as we already have 1500 single family lots platted but vacant. In some smaller towns, the developers threaten to sue and villages back down, even though the schools are overcrowded. Finally have impact fees but that only goes for buildings, not the day to day cost. Developers think we are stupid when they say it won't add costs to the schools and infrastructure but people are wising up. Best thing you can do is to elect good, intelligent people to your village government and county board (that is part of our problem, they allow building on county land that is in our school districts). Too many times the "old" blood just doesn't get it and cannot function with the change. Upside is we bought cheap, really cheap, and after annexation, are sitting on 3 acres zoned commercial. I may store pig manure if they capitulate and rezone next door. Always better to live next to the responsible son rather than the never-had-a-job-never-owned-a-house-son who will be broke again even though mommy left him a very nice trust fund.