Riverside, IL

Riverside is a Cook County village along the Des Plaines River, just west of Chicago, and one of the country's important planned suburban landscapes. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Riverside in the 1860s with curving streets, park-like greens, and a deliberately natural layout, a sharp contrast to the Chicago area's usual grid. Much of that design survives in the Riverside Landscape Architecture District. The village is residential and commuter-friendly, but its real distinction is how intentionally its streets and open spaces were shaped.