Evanston's downtown skyline Photo: Nutmegger at en.wikipedia / Later version(s) were uploaded by W Nowicki at en.wi / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Chicago television took notice of Evanston in early 2015. Fox 32 and ABC 7’s daytime show Windy City Live both sent crews to the city within weeks of each other, and a national ranking gave producers a reason to come.
The ranking
Livability.com announced its 2015 list of the 10 best downtowns in the country on March 2. Pittsburgh took first place and Evanston landed at No. 10. Livability’s editors said they were looking at small and mid-sized cities with rising housing values and population, along with arts scenes, walkable streets and active construction. As the Daily Northwestern reported, the site described downtown Evanston as a mix of urban and suburban character, with social and economic diversity, a sizable cultural scene and plenty of ways to get downtown.
Fox 32’s “Vic’s View” segment interviewed Annie Coakley, director of Downtown Evanston, about the honor.
Windy City Live comes north
The ABC 7 show had visited in February, stopping at Hoosier Mama Pie Company, Gigi Bottega, Bat 17 and Ten Mile House. It also produced a longer piece on Curt’s Cafe, the Evanston restaurant that offers culinary training and support services to young people who have been in trouble with the law, as a route to a second chance.
The coverage landed during a busy stretch of recognition for the city. Time Out Chicago ran its own item on the downtown ranking, and Evanston was in the middle of a World Wildlife Fund sustainability competition.
The Livability announcement quoted editor Matt Carmichael, a Northwestern Medill alumnus, who called this a new golden age for American downtowns and credited the work of restoring Main Streets and urban cores. The rest of the top 10 ran from big-city centers such as Minneapolis and Indianapolis to Somerville, Massachusetts, in ninth place, with Salt Lake City, Greenville, S.C., Alexandria, Va., Fargo and Lincoln in between, according to published accounts of the ranking.
The restaurants and shops named on air were mostly independent operators in and around the downtown core, the kind of businesses a district association like Downtown Evanston promotes year-round. The Daily Northwestern, Time Out Chicago, Patch and Fox 32 all carried news of the ranking in the days after it came out, so the television segments were one part of a wider run of local attention.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
