Naperville, Il is a Chicago suburb, located just to the west of the windy city. It seems to be the ultimate small town, as it was voted to be the second best place to live in 2006 by Money Magazine. Kiplinger rated it first on the list of cities in which to retire early in 2013. It has also been named the wealthiest city in the midwest and eleventh in the nation of those cities with a population of over 75,000. In July of 1831, John Naper founded what was to be Naper’s Settlement (now the city we know and love) on the west bank of the DuPage river. By 1832 over 100 settlers had arrived at the settlement, however news of the Indian Creek massacre that occurred during the Black Hawk War displaced the settlers to Fort Dearborn for fear of an attack by the Sauk tribe. The Fort Payne was constructed at the settlement and the people came back, but the attack never happened. Naperville has been a very rural town until the 1960s when growth began to happen, as Naperville is a very agreeable place to live.
The city continued to grow especially during the 1980s and 1990s when the East-West Tollway and Interstate 355 were constructed. During the past 20 years the town has quadrupled in size as the growth from Chicago brought wealth and jobs to the area.
The public library in Naperville has been named the number one library in the country each year frm 1999 through 2010 for cities with a population from 100,000 to 249,999. The library has three locations within the city limits.
Naperville, Illinois
North Central College is located in Downtown Naperville on a 59 acre campus and has been located there since 1870. Naperville could be called the “bedroom community for Chicago” as it is handy to live there if you work in Chicago proper. You can drive into downtown Chicago, but most commuters take the Metra, or do a drive and park to a closer Metra station. If you do drive to the down town, it’s about an hour’s drive in good traffic conditions. Naperville has its own charm, as it is about 30 miles or so from downtown Chicago, it has its own downtown that is very mature and provides all the shopping and social needs of a good sized community like Naperille. Although there is plenty to do through the rest of the chicago suburbs, Naperville has plenty for all! It has all of the charm of a small town, but it still continues to grow. Its current population of around 140,000 makes it the third largest city in the state of Illinois. One resident put it in terms of being a suburb that does all of the right things. Another put it into the perspective by saying that the city has a gracefulness that is missing from so many other suburbs. For the people living in Naperville, they would not care to live anywhere else as the city has all the sophistication anyone would need, while being able to maintain that small town feel. Another resident said that towns like Naperville don’t just occur by accident, as it takes hard work and planning, and good people to get it done by working together.