Crystal Lake, Illinois
Population: 38,000
Located in McHenry County
Standing in the doorway of the Crystal Lake shoe business his family has operated for three generations, Jim Heisler has his foot on the threshold of change.
He is a 55-year-old merchant and unofficial town historian who remembers the old days when there was one high school in town, when dairy farmers brought their milk to the bustling downtown and rural McHenry County held no appeal to high-tech businesses.
Yet Heisler is like many long-time residents who adapted, if not a bit unwillingly, to all the newcomers who have flooded into the subdivisions built in the past decade.
They acknowledge the pains of traffic on Route 14, They accept there are so many teens in the region that there are now two high schools serving Crystal Lake and a third is being built, They nod their heads when oak trees are bulldozed for strip malls filled with superstores. And they realize the adjustments promise to continue.
Regional planners expect this former resort town of 30,000 - on a glacier- created, spring-fed lake - to double in size by 2020. And after a decade of booming development, city leaders face another growth spurt, escalating traffic woes and the loss of the remaining farm fields. Planners and politicians alike are pushing for more offices and industry to offset the predominantly residential tax base -- a goal that rankles some residents who want the city to preserve some open space.
"It seems like you are always in a catching-up mode," said Jim Heisler, a McHenry County Board member. "I don't know if anyone can plan ahead for the magnitude of the population moving out to McHenry County."
Still, Heisler and his family take all the crowds and commuting in stride. On Wednesday nights, Heisler treks from Crystal Lake to Wilmette - a 90- minute trip with his car pool - to play trumpet in the North Shore Band. Three other days of the week, he drives 30 minutes in the opposite direction, to Woodstock for County Board meetings.
The rest of the time, he is slipping shoes on the feet of school children and senior citizens at Heisler's Bootery in the historic downtown, where dilapidated buildings were razed and others restored during a revitalization project in the late 1980s. The shoe store started by his grandfather is still owned and operated by his 80-year-old father, Lawrence.
"I’ve got the best of both worlds," Jim Heisler said. "I don't have to commute to work. I enjoy living here, but it keeps you on your toes. It keeps changing so much."
To be sure, some of the area surrounding Crystal Lake is wide open. Northwest McHenry County still has many working farms and agricultural-related businesses. But the Heislers are not repairing saddles anymore, and their customers are increasingly young workers who travel not to Chicago for work but to nearby suburbs such as Schaumburg or Harvard where there are many new jobs.
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