Average house price: $634,468
Transportation * * (out of 4) Metra trains and the Edens Expressway link the suburb to the city.
Schools * * * * Eight grade schools in the high-performing Glenview School District 34; Glenbrook South High School (where test scores aren’t quite as good) serves most of the town.
Shopping * * * * The Glen Town Center has retail and dining options, and there are big-box stores on Willow Road.
Plus: The 140-acre Gallery Park (home to the manmade Lake Glenview) and the 32-acre Air Station Prairie (with its $2.5-million interpretive center) provide in-town nature getaways.

Seventeen years ago, Glenview got word from the federal government that it was game-changing time. Glenview Naval Air Station, the 1,028-acre economic engine in the middle of town, was to be shut down. “Glenview was going to look like a doughnut with a big hole in the middle,” recalls Donald Owen, who oversaw the navy’s closure of the base and then crossed the street to work for the village, managing the land’s development.

The result, now known as the Glen, is definitely no doughnut hole. Envisioned as a new town within the town, the Glen has residential neighborhoods with a population of 4,700; a new Metra station; a shopping-and-dining lifestyle center as well as big-box shopping; and institutions that include the butterfly-roofed Kohl Children’s Museum, a junior high, and a community health and fitness center. The latter two are neighbors on a lakeshore necklaced with nice walking paths and natural areas.

While the retail center has had some financial setbacks (typical for today’s economy), overall the Glen has been a tremendous success. Glenview always had its country-squire side on the east, with 1920s and 1930s country homes and clubs, and its midcentury split-levels and ranches in the south and west. Both were appealing places to live, thanks to the high caliber of schools, parks, and transportation. The Glen is the third act that successfully knits all those elements together.