Our mayor won’t stop talking about Naperville.

“This City Council meeting is being recorded live from Naperville,” Mayor Johnson said, at the beginning of his first meeting as mayor. At last week’s Netroots Nation convention, he reminded attendees, “We’re not in Naperville.”

The mayor was taking a dig at Fox and Friends for airing an interview with two disgruntled Chicago voters on the day of his inauguration: it was conducted at Rosie’s Home Cookin’ — in Naperville.

Let’s be real, though: The mayor was also taking a dig at Naperville. It’s become a Chicago tradition. Whenever a Chicagoan complains about the proverbial suburbanite who claims to be from Chicago, it’s always someone “from Naperville.”

Last week, the Tribune came to the defense of Naperville and its neighboring suburbs, with an editorial headlined, “Once boring DuPage County is becoming remarkably cool.” The Trib praised Naperville for its “coffee shops, parks and restaurants,” and mentioned that it was named “the No. 1 place in the United States to raise a family” — which is actually what Chicagoans see as the No. 1 example of the suburb’s napervillainy. Napervillians drive into the city to enjoy sports, concerts, museums, and theater, but would never, ever actually live there.

I visit Naperville every decade, without fail. The first time was on a beer bus to see the Chicago Fire, who played at North Central College while Soldier Field was being renovated. When the bus reached the suburb’s business strip, the riders chanted, “You suck, Naperville!” The second time was for a book signing at Anderson’s Bookshop. The third time was last weekend, to find out whether it’s a center of Fox News perfidy, as the mayor says, or whether, as the Trib says, it’s “starting to change its image as a boring suburban haven for people intimidated by life in the big city.” (I actually think the mayor picks on Naperville because he’s touchy about being from Elgin, and needs to attack suburbia to build his big-city bona fides.) The following are some of my impressions of Naperville.

Naperville is so far west of Chicago the sun rises and sets two minutes later there. It took me two hours to get there from Rogers Park by train. On the BNSF line, I rode through nearly a dozen villages, which became steadily more suburban, finally culminating in Naperville: Cicero, Berwyn, Riverside, Brookfield, LaGrange, Western Springs, Hinsdale, Westmont, Downers Grove, Lisle. I had to walk half a mile from the train station to reach downtown Naperville, which is laid out on streets named for presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren. Once I got there, I saw so many stores I was reminded of a shopping mall I visited in California: a Sunglass Hut, an Eddie Bauer, an Apple store, a Barnes & Noble, a Lululemon, a Paper Source. There are many opportunities to buy goods in Naperville. The only empty storefront I saw was once occupied by an antique store. It could be that people in Naperville prefer to buy things new.

The tallest building in Naperville is the 160-foot Moser Tower, which contains the Millennium Carillon. The tower was constructed in 1999. This indicates that Naperville is truly a suburb, and not a satellite city, like Aurora, which developed a downtown independent of Chicago. I was later told the biggest buildings in Naperville are office towers along Interstate 88. (With its concentration of high tech businesses, such as Nokia and Nicor Gas, Naperville might best be characterized as an edge city.) I couldn’t see them because I hadn’t bought a car, which put a crimp in my attempt to experience suburbia.

There are many foreign languages spoken in Naperville. Along the riverwalk, which runs alongside the DuPage River, I encountered families from China, India, and Poland. Naperville’s population is 22 percent Asian. The cover of the 2023 Downtown Directory features an Asian-American family.

Naperville has a museum devoted to its history, the Naper Settlement, which tells the town’s story beginning with its founder, Captain Joseph Naper, a Great Lakes ship captain who settled there in 1831. Naper may have been the first suburbanite, since he owned land near Fort Dearborn but preferred to live in DuPage County.

Busking is alive and well in Naperville. Kyle Eddy of Morris was playing Yazoo’s “Only You” on his guitar in front of Molly’s Cupcakes.

“I feel like there’s an energy here,” Eddy said. “People have dropped $200 in my case. You don’t need a permit to busk here. The cops have given me money.”

Napervillians know more about Chicago than Chicagoans know about Naperville, which I believe is a barrier to understanding between the two communities. Many Napervillians once lived in Chicago, and still visit frequently. 

“You do get a lot of transplants,” says Michael Kristula, the owner of Treasures, a toy store on Washington Street. “People with strollers will say, ‘We’re from Lincoln Square.'” Kristula himself lived in Chicago from 2002 to 2010, in a Gold Coast apartment so small “I could cook from my own bed.” Naperville offers “more room to grow.” Kristula also feels that Naperville, which experienced only two murders in 2022, is safer than Chicago. The last time he took his family to Navy Pier, they witnessed a brawl. However, he prefers Chicago’s restaurants and theater scene to Naperville’s.

“We like Chicago,” Kristula said; “it’s not the other way around.”

(One of Kristula’s employees, Julian Reyes, lives in Naperville without a car, which some Napervillians think is impossible: “It can be done,” Reyes says. “You have to be OK with going with the flow of things. I walk, bike, Uber, get rides. The buses are inconsistent around these parts.”)

Still in search of a true suburban experience, I went to a bar, Tapville Social, where I hoped to order Two Brothers, a DuPage County beer. Tapville Social has all the DuPage County beers, dispensed from a long bank of taps that charge by the ounce. With the guidance of assistant general manager Jake Eubanks, I poured myself an all DuPage flight: Two Brothers Rive Gauche (Warrenville), Noon Whistle Fuzzy Smack (Naperville), Hidden Hand Twilight Graveyard (Naperville), and Two Hand Red Carried Away by Cardinals (Glen Ellyn). It cost $14.64, which is a lot for beer. 

“Do you serve Old Style?” I asked Eubanks.

“No Old Style,” he said. “I go around Naperville and I don’t see Old Style signs.”

Eubanks suggested finishing my flight with the Two Hand Red, to “end on that nice raspberry note.” After I did, I told him, “This is the one place I felt I got an experience I couldn’t get in Chicago.”

“Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot.”

I really wasn’t finding anything in Naperville that I couldn’t get in Chicago. That explains why I only visited every 10 years. I could live a complete life without ever going to Naperville, especially since it’s such a long haul on the train. But I’m sure that’s also true of Lemont or Schaumburg or Libertyville. Of all suburbs, why do Chicagoans single out Naperville for scorn? At the Naper Settlement, I met a woman who offered an answer. Jeanne Schultz Angel grew up in Naperville, went to Waubonsie Valley High School, then moved to Norwood Park, from which she commutes back to her hometown to work as associate vice president of the history museum. That evening, she was helping set up for a Weezer tribute concert.

“Speaking both languages, I think there’s this perception and then there’s the reality,” Angel said. “People in Chicago might think they know the brand, which is idyllic suburban. We always make the top lists of where to live. Chicagoans tend to get beaten up about living in Chicago. There’s a lot of learning curve that can increase understanding. People who think Naperville is this very idyllic, very American place, it does surprise. We have a Patel Brothers. Naperville has a constant transient population, but I think a lot of people who grew up in Naperville had their careers here and bought homes here. I love the city. I love Naperville, too. It’s a different kind of life.”

Chicagoans need to respect Naperville’s differences and stop cracking jokes at its expense. Stop thinking about Naperville altogether. It’s so far away. Why let it bother you? I just spent a day in Naperville and I probably won’t think about it for another decade, when I find a reason to visit again.