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Chicago's Northwest Suburbs

Area 847

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

The paper

About Area 847

Area 847 is a hometown paper for Chicago's northwest suburbs — the 847 belt from Des Plaines out through Long Grove, not the North Shore. It is written for people shopping towns, and for people already here who need the public-works desk at 9 p.m.

The map

We cover Arlington Heights, Palatine, Inverness, Schaumburg, Buffalo Grove, Mount Prospect, Des Plaines, Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, Elk Grove Village, Wheeling, Barrington, South Barrington, Lake Zurich, Long Grove, Deer Park, and Kildeer. South Barrington and Inverness belong with Barrington and Palatine even when the marketing name on a listing says otherwise. Deer Park, Kildeer, and Long Grove sit on the same school and shopping edge, so they belong here too.

How we source

  1. Population, housing values, income, and commute minutes come from U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts and ACS 2020–2024 estimates. The vintage is printed next to the number.
  2. Village, police, library, and park-district phones come from municipal sites. Tax medians come from Cook County Clerk rate reports and BlockShopper FY 2024 summaries, labeled as medians, not your PIN.
  3. Photographs are Wikimedia Commons stills. Author, license, and file link sit in the caption.
  4. Events come from park-district and library calendars listed on Event sources. Dining lists are roundups from OpenTable, TripAdvisor, and downtown associations. Resources — malls, theaters, churches — come from official sites; service times are dated to those pages. Other attractions (Goebbert’s, Falcon Park, LEGOLAND, Andretti, Volkening Heritage Farm, Medieval Times, Metropolis, Busse Woods, Woodfield, Des Plaines Theatre) come from the operators’ own hours and ticket pages, checked September 15, 2026. Quoted prices carry that date. Venue cards for those stops live on Facilities.
  5. If Census QuickFacts does not publish a figure for a village under 5,000 people, the sheet says so. We do not fill the hole with a guess.
  6. Town maps and the masthead outline are U.S. Census Bureau cartographic place boundaries (2019, 1:500,000), not a surveyor’s plat. Limits move; check the village if you need a legal line.

Home SOS

Home SOS is a phone list, not a dispatch desk. Village halls, police non-emergency lines, public works, Nicor, ComEd, and J.U.L.I.E. If you need a licensed plumber or electrician, Illinois keeps the roster at the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

Open Home SOS · Open resources · Open attractions · Open town sheets · Event sources · Facilities

September 2026. Not an official village or county page.