By Ted Slowik
God bless the U.S. Census Bureau, for providing us with an endless stream of information that we media types love to turn into news stories. Especially here in Naperville, considering this town's fascination with lists.
The latest Census report says that more Americans are living in bigger houses, abodes that have four or more bedrooms. In fact, in cities with 65,000 or more residents, Naperville ranks third in the nation in terms of percentage of big homes.
Well, duh. This is hardly news to Naperville. Just look around, and all you see are nice, big houses. I suppose the real news we should read into this report is what affordable housing advocates in DuPage County have been saying for years -- that smaller, less expensive dwellings are conspicuously scarce in Naperville.
Other communities of comparable size -- Aurora, Joliet, Rockford -- have an abundance of multifamily housing and older, smaller, more affordable homes. But in Naperville, even the rare, smaller homes are quite expensive because of the city's excellent school systems (and their relatively high tax rates) and other amenities that perennially catapult Naperville near the top of the best-places-in-America to live lists.
I've always wondered--how do you do it, Naperville? How are so many people able to sustain such an excellent quality of life? What kinds of occupations do Napervillians have to pay their mortgages and other bills? I'm curious to know how the typical Naperville resident makes ends meet.
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