Between the city and the country, a delightful world of villages and small cities offers respite for those who wish to live apart from the bustle of the metropolis. Many of Chicago's suburbs date to the late 1800s and early 1900s, and feature the architecture and culture of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Newer communities offer smaller bungalow-style homes from the post-World War II years or sprawling subdivisions of large, contemporary houses.
	North. Chicago's "North Shore" evolved as a set of suburbs along Lake Michigan in the mid- to late-1800s, one of the first such groups of affluent railroad settlements in the country. Today the area continues to include some of the most prosperous and pleasant communities in the city area, and additional suburbs have emerged to its west.
	North Shore, Cook County: Evanston, immediately north of Chicago, hosts prestigious Northwestern University and a large commercial downtown. Wilmette features the stunning Baha'i Temple and a gracious lakefront. Kenilworth, a tiny residential suburb, boasts splendid estates from the roaring '20s. Winnetka, and its neighborhoods Indian Hill and Hubbard Woods, offers some of the most picturesque residential and retail areas in the region.Glencoe has its own lovely lakefront, downtown area, and the breathtaking Chicago Botanic Garden.
	North Shore, Lake County: Highland Park offers another charming commercial hub with a large downtown spread. It also hosts the peerless Ravinia Festival, Chicagoland's premier outdoor music venue and summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Highwood is a smaller community just north of Highland Park. Lake Forest has a historic outdoor shopping area, an acclaimed liberal arts college, and vintage country estates.
	West of the North Shore: The villages immediately to the west of the North Shore, orginally agricultural, have joined their eastern neighbors as prominent suburbs. Northbrook has one of the poshest indoor malls in Chicago. Deerfield is rapidly adding contemporary retail space, but honors its past with a charming vintage buildings arranged in a "historic village". Bannockburn, Lincolnshire, and Riverwoods are smaller, mainly residential communities.
	Northwest. The Northwest Suburbs are a vast and somewhat disparate group of bedroom communities. While in places they aspire to the understated chicness of the North Shore, in others they celebrate Americana and the homespun, while others still hybridize many different cultures and cultural outlooks.
	Union Pacific Northwest (Harvard) Train Line: Park Ridge, one of Chicago's most charming suburbs, has a thriving main street, lovely parks and is a quick drive to O'Hare. Des Plaines offers down-to-earth Americana charms, including a historical society in a house from the 19th Century and a museum dedicated to the site of the first McDonalds franchise. Arlington Heights, basically a new suburb, has many blocks of its downtown dedicated to suburban shopping opportunities, as well as small mall on its outskirts that specializes in Japanese merchandise. The Arlington Park racetrack is nearby. Palatine has a great forest preserve and a newly expanded downtown featuring a fountain donated by its sister city in France.
	North Central (Antioch) Line / Milwaukee District North (Fox Lake) Line. These suburbs suggest a strange melange of hometown character echoing the agricultural prairie and an increasingly vibrant immigrant culture, especially Hispanic and Asian, as well as some echoes of grand 19th-Century style. Nature also makes its presence known here with dozens of parks and preserves. Cities and villages in this area include Grayslake, Mundelein, Libertyville, and Round Lake.
	Milwaukee District West (Elgin) Line. The suburbs along this line cater to suburban diners and shoppers with dozens of low-rise strip malls and larger commercial outlets such as the indoor and outdoor malls in Schaumburg.
	Western. Historic, gracious, and articulate in their sense of identity, the Western suburbs offer a more down-to-earth alternative to the urbane and at times pretentious North Shore.
	Union Pacific West (Geneva) Line. Some of Chicagoland's most interesting villages as well as a handful of industrial sites. Architecture-rich Oak Park and River Forest as well as posh Wheaton and Glen Ellyn line this route, and the gracious riverside communities of Geneva and St. Charles are far to the west. Berkeley features a large industrial hub, and Elmhurst has a stone quarry nearby.
	Burlington Northern Santa Fe (Aurora) Line. Communities with an exclusivity not unlike the North Shore's, such as affluent Hinsdale, historic Western Springs, and shopper-friendly La Grange are situated here, as well as large suburban/commercial spreads associated with the technology industry at Naperville.A favorite Chicago-area attraction, the Brookfield Zoo, is in the Hollywood neighborhood in Brookfield along this route.
	South. At one time considered somewhat provincial, the South Suburbs are experiencing a renaissance. Communities founded in the early and mid-20th Century, such as Oak Lawn, are coming of age to offer affluent, attractive alternatives to the North Shore and Western Suburbs. Many South Suburbs feature a quick commute via rail to downtown Chicago, and a new wave of settlers has moved from Chicago's South Side neighborhoods to the suburbs just to the south. With some now centers of upscale culture, the near South suburbs retain the attractive characteristics of a comfortable, safer environment within easy reach of the city. A few Near South suburbs, however, have drifted toward the urban edginess associated with some of the neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side.