Editor's Note: This story was originally published in 2015.
Picture it. The majesty of Chicago suburbia.
The ridges of Park Ridge like waves of a tumultuous sea! The grandeur of Arlington Heights and the sweeping sublime of Palos Hills. And beyond, the bold peak of Mount Prospect rises in the distance like Olympus itself!
Name-wise, the Chicago suburbs sound like the most romantic landscape this side of the Mississippi.
But if you’ve actually set foot in the place, like our questioner John Leahy, you know the terrain is hardly reminiscent of a Thomas Cole painting. Feeling the discrepancy between place names and actual geography, John sent us this question:
In notoriously flat Chicago, why do so many suburb names imply elevation?
The irony runs deep.
A recent nationwide flatness studysuggests Illinois is the second-flattest state in the country (number one being Florida, which will be under water pretty soon anyway), but you definitely don’t get that impression from the names of Chicago suburbs.
Read the full story, here.
