Introduction to Des Plaines

This blog starts with the introductory post about the city Cook County, Illinois, United States. Its name is Des Plaines as the original name is of French origin. One can’t say that this city is large as just about 55.000 live there according to the latest census. At the same time this city can be considered as a suburb of Chicago. Moreover it is adjacent to O’Hare International Airport. Being a Chicago suburb the city has the same postal addresses numbering system. It means that one and the same building may have different numbers according to the belonging to Chicago or Des Plaines. For instance, Devon Avenue in Des Plaines is 3200 South while it is 6400 North in Chicago. A very sophisticated issue for stangers though useful in other ways. How did it happen that there is no boundaries between two cities? Actually, this is the fate of all the small towns and cities as large megalopolices expand the boundaries between them vanish.

As for the demographic situation Des Plaines is not an exceptional American city where practially all nations incorporate in the famous salad bowl. German, Polish, Irish, Italian, English, Swedish and other ancestries are the major in this city. What is important to remember is that the Des Plaines is a very economically diverse city, with home values ranging from $30,000 to more than $1,000,000.

Since it is being considered as Chicago suburb there are practically no own places of interest except may be the first franchised McDonald’s restaurant as nowadays it is a museum. There are schools, one academy, public libraries but once again, since Chicago adjoins Des Plaines all the places of interest in Chicago can be easily reached by those living in Des Plaines. All in all, Des Plaines is just like a dormitory area for those who consider themselves the residents of the Windy City.

Des Plaines can be compared to Canadian small towns and counties where the prices on real estate have gone up to the beyond reasonable limits. And house flipping has just made it faster since this kind of practice doesn't reflect the real state of the real estate market. This is just the practice used by those who want to buy, make some cosmetic changes to the houses and sell them at once. This is not the practice of a serious renovation when new equipment is installed or the square of the living space is increased by minimizing the packing space, installing security gates and rolling doors. Flipping as we have mentioned above usually deals with cosmetic changes and sometimes refering to spray foam equipment that makes the exterior shine. But the real value of such a condo or detached house unfortuantely remains the same.