Tom Kacich: Searching for the perfect Urbana

May 15—Urbana must be the place to be, because it is everywhere.

Wherever I go, it seems, I find an idyllic, colorful, fashionable, trendy place called Urbana. On the rankings of the absolute best places to be, it is found just below Nirvana.

Urbana wasn't always this way. In 1833, when it was settled and named the county seat of Champaign County (an example of some of the most unoriginal thinking ever since another Urbana had been named the county seat of Champaign County, Ohio, in 1805) there wasn't much here except a stream, the Big Grove area of timber to the northeast and a lot of marshland. There were good reasons that it was among the last areas of Illinois to be settled.

Railroads, plows, agricultural drainage practices and political deal-making (see: Clark Griggs and the founding of the Illinois Industrial University) eventually made Urbana a much nicer place to live. By 1933, Urbana was about as peaceful and charming as a small Midwestern town could be, right down to the statue and drinking fountain at the end of Main Street. It had been erected by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union to celebrate that Urbana had been a "dry" town since 1907, well before the rest of the country.

(OK, not everything in Urbana was idyllic, nor could it all be blamed on the outright corruption across Wright Street in Champaign; the Ku Klux Klan operated openly at a theater in Urbana, and there were occasional raids and affrays in the county seat, too.)

But as money and progress and interstate highways moved to Champaign in the 1960s and '70s, Urbana stayed small. In 1970, Champaign had 63.3 percent of the combined Champaign-Urbana population. Today, it has almost 70 percent.

Universally, Urbana is smaller, and smaller is beautiful. And trendy. And has a chill vibe. That's what the cool kids say.

While in Southern California recently, we happened upon the hip Urbana East Village Rental Flats in downtown San Diego.

"Word on the street is that the East Village is San Diego's most exciting new downtown neighborhood," says the marketing pitch. "And Urbana puts you right in the center of the action."

And in Anaheim, there is an Urbana restaurant that is part of a popular food hall housed in a 1919-era citrus packing house. "Mexican gastronomy" is its specialty.

"We chose the name as a Spanish word for 'urban' since we serve elevated/modernized Mexican street (urban) food," the restaurant told me in an email. Illinois' Urbana has that too, in food trucks.

Once while in Barcelona, Spain, I came upon a vintage women's clothing store called Urbana. It was so cool that I took a photo of a young woman smoking a cigarette in front of it, something that would be frowned upon here. Eventually, the Barcelonans will catch up to us.

Closer to home, we went on a vacation a few years ago to the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York. There, we passed through — yes, Urbana — along the shores of Keuka Lake. It is a flourishing tourist area with wineries, distilleries, breweries, restaurants, hotels, boating, golf and state parks and forests. It's hard to get more chill than that.

There are said to be at least 11 places in the United States named Urbana, and others in Italy and South America. Thousands more people have adopted the name for their businesses, all seeming to desire a mellow vibe.

That, of course, describes Urbana, which treasures its trees, parks, farmer's market, outdoor music tent at the Rose Bowl, flat landscape perfect for biking, cooperative food market, ancient hotel now on its at least fifth owner, and the venerated downtown, indoor Lincoln Square mall that had a too-brief apex but whose owners remain hopeful of a better turn.

Everyone seems to be searching for the perfect Urbana when it's right here.