Oak Park Ill among Forbes Ten Best 2010

America's Best Neighborhoods 2010

The Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District of Oak Park, Ill., fits the bill. Wright moved to the Chicago suburb in 1889 as an aspiring architect. When he left nearly 25 years later, he'd created community that has become synonymous with the Prairie School of architecture. Including Wright's home and studio, the neighborhood contains 23 properties designed or remodeled by the master himself, and some 80 Prairie style buildings in all. (For true history buffs, a kid by the name of Ernest Hemingway was growing up in the same neighborhood about the time Wright was forging his legend in the Chicago suburbs.)

In Denver urban planners have remodeled Lower Downtown, the city's original railroad and warehouse district, and have refashioned it into a vibrant shopping, dining and residential area that makes the list. "LoDo," as the area is affectionately called, is a popular nighttime spot and was a hit with revelers during the Democratic National Convention when the city hosted it in 2008.

In Boston the affluent Back Bay neighborhood, which contains Victorian brownstones and some of the city's tallest skyscrapers, is another favorite (though not without some controversy due to the architectural diversity of the area, says an APA spokesman). Back Bay's 19th-century planners took their cue from the grand boulevards of Paris, according to the American Planning Association. Today Back Bay is home to upscale restaurants, shops and hotels, many on Newbury and Boylston Streets.

In selecting their list, a process that takes about six months, the APA takes suggestions from a variety of sources, including staff, the public and its members. A committee of four examines several aspects of a neighborhood, including its sense of community and overall composition, its local character and environment and sustainability practices. It then requests additional information, in essence an application, from the neighborhood's community planners or association. This year the APA considered between 30 and 40 neighborhoods.

"There's not a point system," and neighborhoods aren't ranked, says Denny Johnson, public affairs coordinator for the APA. "We don't think you can honestly do that." He will say that the most defining characteristic of a Great Neighborhood is a "unique sense of place." A preponderance of history seems to be the common characteristic of this year's designees. Many of them also have vibrant commercial zones.

For example, downtown Frederick, Md., is within driving distance of several shrines for Civil War enthusiasts, including Gettysburg, Antietam and Harper's Ferry. It's also got quaint old buildings and a relatively new park--begun after a flood in the 1970s--that the APA describes as a "recreational and cultural treasure."

Lafayette, Indiana's Ninth Street Hill neighborhood was the abode of the city's wealthiest families in the 19th century. Although the area fell into disrepair after World War II, a community group breathed life into the disctrict in the 1980s. A few of the grand mansions remain, but the neighborhood is renowned today for its sense of community as much as its local history.

Other neighborhoods that make the list this year include Jacksonville, Florida's Riverside Avondale, an eclectic architectural zone on the St. Johns River, the John S. Park neighborhood in Las Vegas, Cincinnati's Hyde Park, the Cathedral Historic District in Sioux Falls, S.D, and the artsy Paseo in Oklahoma City. General [l]