[tptacek]

You'd hope that Oak Park, Evanston, Wilmette, and then Berwyn and Schaumburg could get this done, and then your next step would be either Chicago (tough because of aldermanic structure) or statewide, the way California did. Either way: you start in one municipality and work from there.

It helps that zoning matters more in Oak Park (and Evanston) than almost anywhere else in Chicagoland.

[ChrisBland]

There is no way you get Wilmette to change zoning. They've fought with Small Cheval about the size of their sign for like 9 months. I doubt you'd get any village in the NT district to rezone - the Optima project was pulling teeth, everyone is worried about overcrowding NT, which as a single HS is pretty packed now

[tptacek]

The whole project is going to take many years. Even if we fix Oak Park zoning in the coming year, it'll still be years before anything significant gets built, and years past that for us to serve as a test case.

[HDThoreaun]

New Trier can just build another campus like they did for freshmen.

[tatersolid]

Where exactly? Land on the north shore isn’t empty nor is it cheap.

[pchristensen]

Why does zoning matter more in Oak Park and Evanston? High demand from being on the El and close to Chicago?

[tptacek]

Yep. Historically both of these places basically exist to concentrate the interests of the upper middle class and to reinforce segregation. They're both basically Chicago but with a better funded school system (because lawyers and doctors get to funnel all their property taxes into the school down the street from them), which makes them highly desirable.