It used to be that the center of gay life in Chicago was centered and almost completely contained within the city limits. Be it downtown and the Gold Coast up through the 1980s or Boystown, Andersonville, and Uptown in subsequent years, the GLBT community lived, worked and played solely in zip codes that began with "606".

As gays and lesbians and their varied lifestyles have gained more acceptance throughout the country, specifically in populous metropolitan areas, opportunities for happy and fulfilling lives no longer are confined to urban areas. Many in the GLBT community, for a myriad of reasons, are embracing suburban life, either leaving behind the hustle and bustle of city living or bypassing urbanista status altogether. Given Chicagoland's moderate political leanings and culturally diverse population base, gays and lesbians have steadily moved into various suburban locations, finding acceptance and comfort amongst their neighbors.

Gays in Suburbia: Where They Live
If you want suburban living but don't want to lose all the trapping of city life, then Evanston (to the north) and Oak Park (to the west) are the perfect cities in which to plant rainbow flags. Evanston is a liberal college town that has been an magnet for higher-earning gays who can afford the beautiful, but high-priced housing stock. Evanston offers a plethora of educational, cultural, recreational, and retail opportunities, and thanks to convenient transportation links (CTA, Metra, and Sheridan Road to Lake Shore Drive) it's only a short commute to downtown Chicago as well as neighborhoods popular with the GLBT community.

With no major university within its city limits, Oak Park is not quite as bustling as Evanston, but it still provides an exciting and accepting environment for gays and lesbians looking to settle outside of Chicago. Often cited on national Top 10 lists of "best cities for gays and their families to live," the city of Oak Park has a Domestic Partnership Registry law and a very active and influential Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Association that has achieved quite a lot over the past 20 years to dramatically improved the quality of gay life in Oak Park and in other western suburban locales.

While Evanston and Oak Park are easily identifiable gay suburban hotspots, there are several other towns that are becoming more "pink and lavender" in make-up. They include Skokie (next to Evanston on the North Shore); the northwest suburbs of Buffalo Grove and Elk Grove Village; the western suburbs of LaGrange and Berwyn; and Oak Lawn and the Homewood-Flossmoor area to the south.

Gays in Suburbia: Where They Shop
Let's face it, gay men love to shop, and if a trip to the city for a day on Michigan Avenue is not in the cards, then there are several suburban outposts that attracts them. North of the city, the Westfield Old Orchard Shopping Center in Skokie boasts a retail line-up that includes Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Macy's, Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel and Abercrombie & Fitch. The same department store retailers plus Neiman-Marcus and H&M are housed out in the western suburbs at the Oakbrook Center. Of course you're sure to find plenty of gays and lesbians shopping for their homes at the areas two Ikea stores: in Schaumburg and out in Bolingbrook.

Gays in Suburbia: Where They Party
The grand-daddy of suburban gay clubs, Hunters (1932 E. Higgins, Elk Grove Village) has been attracting the men of the northwest suburbs for more than 20 years with a weekly line-up that includes dancing, go-go boys, and karaoke. Offering much of the same, plus drag performers, in the southern part of Chicagoland is the newly opened Club Krave (which used to be known as The Edge Bar) (13126 S. Western, Blue Island). Out in the near western suburbs you'll find a full-service nightclub that's fun and comfortable in Hideaway (7301 W. Roosevelt, Forest Park).