(A client forwarded this article about HP to me - thought I would share with my readers - nsk)
In mid-June, Highland Park entrepreneur Jim Kirsch traveled to Bentonville, Ark., for discussions with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. about picking up a line of wedding supplies sold by a business he owns. The talks went well enough that when Mr. Kirsch got back, he immediately reached out to an acquaintance who runs a large packaging company.
"I never had a reason to call this person professionally, but I know him through my son's baseball team," says Mr. Kirsch. "So when I got off the plane, I called my wife to look him up in the Buzz Book," a parent directory issued by Elm Place Middle School. "That must happen to me five times a week. When you have kids in the school system, the Buzz Book is your Rolodex."
As Mr. Kirsch and others point out, it makes for an especially rich and versatile list of contacts, given the town's mix of professionals, entrepreneurs and corporate executives, including Edward L. Kaplan, CEO of Zebra Technologies Corp.; Jim Abrams, COO of Medline Industries Inc., and Michael Krasny, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of CDW Corp and president of Sawdust Investment Management Corp.
Residents say the mix seems to tilt somewhat toward entrepreneurs and workers in professional services fields like law and finance, making the city especially fertile ground for networking.
As an entrepreneur active in multiple industries — he also owns an online job board for Hispanic executives — Mr. Kirsch, 45, may have more occasion than some of his neighbors to tap into that network. And as a member of the City Council, he may be especially inclined to keep himself immersed in it.
But in many respects, he seems to typify a community whose residents describe their city as a close-knit small town, albeit one with a large helping of corporate and professional heavy hitters. They populate the town's half-dozen golf courses, including two of the Chicago area's all-male private clubs, the award-winning Bob O' Link Golf Club and super-exclusive Old Elm Club.
Like Mr. Kirsch, many current residents grew up in Highland Park and have returned to raise their own families, drawn by the town's lakefront location, ample green space, well-regarded schools, stellar park district programs, vibrant downtown, proximity to cultural attractions like the Ravinia Festival and, often, the opportunity to be close to family and longtime friends.
"There's a real extended family feeling in Highland Park," says Michael Belsky, Highland Park's mayor and a managing director with Fitch Ratings Ltd. "If you go out to dinner on a Sunday night, you see big tables — brothers, sisters, uncles and grandparents."
The city government has taken an active hand in fostering a sense of community, including affordable-housing initiatives that recently won an award from the American Planning Assn.
Dozens of houses, townhomes and condos come in under the $500,000 mark. Still, the average sale price of single-family homes jumped from $709,511 in the first half of 2005 to $900,181 in the first half of 2006, an increase of 27%, says John Caselli, a real-estate agent with Prudential Preferred Properties in Highland Park.
The city has enjoyed solid success in its long-term efforts to support the revival of its downtown shopping district, which was threatened by the development of malls in nearby suburbs in the 1970s and '80s.
Today, Port Clinton Square provides a town commons with free outdoor concerts twice a week in the summer, when lines snake out the door of the Dairy Queen.
BEST PLACES TO LIVE
Highland
Park
Population: 31,380 Area: 12.4 square miles Median household income: $100,967 Commute: 49 minutes by Metra Population figure estimates as of July 2005; household income as of 2000. U.S. Census and land area data are from City-Data.com. Commute times are to Chicago's Loop during morning rush hour and are calculated by Metra schedule. |
Families, friends and colleagues bump into each other at Michael's Hot Dog Stand, Once Upon a Bagel and especially Norton's, a restaurant/pub that residents describe as the Cheers of Highland Park.
"Half the fun of having people coming to my restaurant is that they mingle," says Richard Holleb, the pub's co-owner. "They spend the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes that they're here saying hi to the people they know."
The city has also supported the development of office space downtown, and more recently created a free Wi-Fi network that covers the entire downtown area. As technology has made it easier to establish offices outside Chicago's Loop, some residents — including money managers, entrepreneurs and attorneys — have moved their businesses to their hometown.
"The main reason I moved was quality of life, but it has created an expansion in my business," says attorney Calvin Bernstein, who set up a solo practice in Highland Park two years ago after several years at a downtown firm. "I have (suburban) clients who hired me because they'd rather not go downtown.
"There is a certain energy that you get downtown," he says. "But Highland Park has it on a smaller scale."
©2006 by Crain Communications Inc.
