Riverside: America's First Planned Suburb
Near Chicago Lake Michigan, Illinois
Nine miles west of downtown Chicago, the village of Riverside looks unlike any other suburb in America, and that is entirely by design. In eighteen sixty-nine, the Riverside Improvement Company hired Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the team that had just completed Central Park, to plan an entire community from scratch. Olmsted rejected the grid.
He laid out curving roads that followed the natural contours of the Des Plaines River valley, interspersed with parks and long communal greens. The idea was to combine the convenience of city life with the air and openness of the country. Riverside became a template for suburban planning across North America.
The Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad provided the commuter connection that made it viable. In nineteen seventy the National Park Service designated the entire village a National Historic Landmark, making it one of a handful of whole communities to receive that distinction.
