The Suburbs Keep On Growing

"Standing in front of their new home, Alysia and Ryan Schramka and their 2-year-old daughter, Madison, look out across 600 acres of what recently were corn and soybean fields. At the moment, their view is of a barren landscape. The streets have been put into the naked ground but curve along lots where only weeds reside.

'We're ready,' Alysia said. 'We're excited.'

In early December, the Schramkas will become pioneers on the outer edge of the suburbs as one of the very first families in Ingham Park, 46 miles from the [Chicago] Loop on the far western border of Aurora, Illinois."

"They will move from northwest suburban McHenry County into the Ultima II -- a four-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath, two-story home with a three-car garage -- on Ayres Drive. The development is being built in the midst of a still-working farm with crops to the south and barns and silos to the north.

If Alysia and Ryan look farther out and into the future, they can see new subdivisions springing up to surround them. Shopping malls and office buildings also will rise. Roads will be built and congestion will follow."

"'I see no compelling reason for the outward push to stop, short of an energy crisis, and I'm not even convinced that would do it,' said Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at Loyola University Chicago. 'It didn't stop when Rogers Park was the outer edge in the 1900s. It didn't stop when Rolling Meadows was the outer edge in the 1950s. It didn't stop when Schaumburg was the outer edge in the 1970s.

'If it were just housing, it would be one thing, but it isn't. Jobs, shopping, hospitals -- everything sprawls out.'"