Mt. Prospect Lives Up to its Name

Business Week magazine has named Mt. Prospect as the nation's best place to raise children, using factors such as test scores and cultural make-up. Sayeth BW:

Founded by German immigrants and incorporated in 1917, Mount Prospect hasn't strayed far from its values of fiscal conservatism and community involvement, even as it has expanded to include new immigrants from Poland, Mexico, Korea, and India. It is a middle-class community with low crime, affordable homes, award-winning schools, ethnic restaurants, a major regional mall, and a small-town charm that makes the big city less than an hour away seem much farther away.

You won't find palatial estates here—let alone McMansions. People generally live in modest homes with short driveways that touch the yards next door. And residents here have been known to share power generators after storms and take turns cooking meals for sick friends and acquaintances. "I knew one girl who had back surgery," said Jean Murphy, a correspondent for the Daily Herald, suburban Chicago's largest daily newspaper. Murphy, who has covered Mount Prospect since 1983, said: "She had six weeks where she didn't have to cook. That's the kind of town it is."