"Imagine there's no meaningful municipal boundries. It's easy if you try."
Imagine that you live in Ames, Iowa, a town of about 52,000 people. (I realize this is difficult for moM and daD, but please bear with me.) Your library would be the Ames Public Library. Your parks would be run by the Ames Parks & Recreation Department. And if you had children in school, their high school would eventually be Ames High School.
Now imagine that you live in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, a town of about 43,000 people -- comparable in size to Ames. You would guess that your library would be the Buffalo Grove library. No. There is no Buffalo Grove library. In fact, not all of Buffalo Grove even goes to the same library: About 30 percent of it goes to the Indian Trails Public Library in Wheeling, and the rest goes to the Vernon Area Public Library in Lincolnshire (next to Vernon Hills, hence the name). "Well," you think, "at least all of Wheeling, which is similarly sized to Buffalo Grove, goes to the Indian Trails Public Library." No. Only about half of Wheeling goes to the Indian Trails Public Library. The rest goes to the Prospect Heights Public Library in Prospect Heights. "Well," you think, "at least all of Vernon Hills goes to the Vernon Area Public Library." No. Very, very little of Vernon Hills goes to the Vernon Area Public Library; the vast majority goes to the Cook Memorial Public Library District, which is based in Libertyville.
"Surely, though," you think, "I am part of the Buffalo Grove Park District." Probably. But not necessarily. For example, if you lived in the apartment complex where Kim and Benji and I have our temporary housing, you would live in the city of Buffalo Grove but be in the Wheeling Park District. (We learned this yesterday when attempting to register for classes in the BGPD.) And there are areas of Arlington Heights that are in the BGPD instead of the Arlington Heights Park District, as well as unincorporated areas with a Buffalo Grove address that are in the Vernon Hills Park District.
"Still," you go on, "I know people get more uptight about schools than parks or libraries, so surely Buffalo Grove goes to Buffalo Grove High School -- or at least most of it." No. Only about 15 percent of Buffalo Grove goes to BGHS; most BGHS students are from Arlington Heights. (Arlington Heights sends students to six different high schools -- Wm. Fremd, John Hersey, Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Wheeling, and BGHS -- none of which are made up of exclusively Arlington Heights residents.) The rest of Buffalo Grove (including our new house) goes to Adlai E. Stevenson High School, which also takes students from the cities of Lincolnshire, Vernon Hills, Hawthorn Woods, Lake Zurich, Mundelein, Long Grove, Kildeer, and Riverwoods. Of those nine towns, only two of them -- Long Grove and Lincolnshire -- send all their high school students to Stevenson, and neither of the two even has 8,000 residents.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
