We're moving back to the city...

...in June. After 22 years in Glenview we sold our house and plan on signing a lease on a row house in Little Italy this Saturday. Why there? (Or University Village or the Near West Side or "near UIC," as my wife calls it?) The primary reason is to live close to the house our foundation bought for young adults with autism, above. (Check out our website.)

I don't know when I was going to write about this in my blog, but an opinion piece in the Times this morning, "America’s Urban Future," forced my hand (my emphasis):

For all of the attention showered on hipster enclaves like Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Portland, Ore., America is only in the beginning stages of a historic urban reordering. After over a half-century of depopulation, cities have been filling up — and not just with young millennials, but with families and even older workers and retirees.

It is significant enough that young people are choosing to start the next phase of their lives in cities. But increasingly, so are their parents. No less immune to the economic shocks of the last decade, and with longer life spans and bigger health bills before them, downsizing empty nesters are also discovering the benefits of more compact living.

Then there's this, which I had earlier thought to post as "The statistics of the day":

A staggering 90 percent of our gross domestic product and 86 percent of our jobs are generated in 3 percent of the continental United States, namely our cities.

So, yeah, look for some posts soon on our experience moving "back to the city." (I may even have to write a series on it for the Oak Leaves.)