Chicago Heights & Park Forest

Chicago Heights and Park Forest are south suburban neighbors with very different origins: Chicago Heights grew up at the crossroads of the Lincoln Highway and Dixie Highway as a steel and manufacturing city with a big Italian and later Mexican population, while Park Forest was built from scratch in the late 1940s as one of the country’s first planned suburbs for returning GIs, the subject of William Whyte’s The Organization Man. Chicago Heights has a downtown that lost its department stores decades ago and Prairie State College; Park Forest has a walkable village center, a co-op history and the Illinois Theatre Center. Both are among the most affordable places to buy in the region.

Where it is

On the map, Chicago Heights sits at Route 30 (Lincoln Highway) and Dixie Highway (Route 1), 30 miles south of the Loop, between Glenwood and Steger; Park Forest is southwest of it along Western Avenue and Sauk Trail, bordering Richton Park and Matteson. Metra Electric stops at 211th Street/Lincoln Highway in Olympia Fields and at Richton Park and Matteson on the west side, about 50 minutes to Millennium Station; Chicago Heights itself has no station. I-57 has an exit at Sauk Trail, and Route 30, Route 1 and Western Avenue are the main roads. The Loop is 45 minutes to an hour by car.

What to know if you’re moving here

Prices are the lowest in the region and the tax rates are among the highest, and both facts shape who moves here.

• Housing is bungalows and older houses in Chicago Heights and postwar ranches, townhomes and co-op apartments in Park Forest, with typical prices of roughly $80,000 to $300,000 as a broad editorial estimate as of September 2026.
• Parking is driveways and garages, with easy street parking everywhere.
• Public schools are Chicago Heights District 170 and Bloom Township High School District 206, and Park Forest District 163 feeding Rich Township High School District 227.
• South Cook County property tax rates are the highest in the region, so a low purchase price comes with a bill that can rival a more expensive house up north.
• Park Forest’s original co-op townhomes are still cooperatively owned and have their own rules and financing.
• The drawback is thin retail and long drives to Metra, plus commercial corridors that have not recovered from the loss of the area’s factories.

What to do if you’re visiting

Park Forest’s DownTown along Artists Walk is the walkable spot, and the rest is a drive.

• Community theater has run in Chicago Heights since 1931 at The Drama Group, whose 96th season opens October 9, 2026 with the musical Memphis at 330 W. 202nd Street.
• Fifteen artist studios and two floors of exhibits fill a three-story landmark building on Otto Boulevard at Union Street Gallery, a nonprofit that has shown south suburban artists since 1995.
• Live theater in Park Forest’s DownTown is at Theater 47, a 200-seat house at 371 Artists Walk whose founder John Ruffin was named the village’s 2025 Business Person of the Year.
• Two doors down at 367 Artists Walk, Tall Grass Arts Association runs a free gallery, art classes and the Park Forest Art Fair, which held its 70th edition in September 2026.
• Gelato and dairy-free Italian ice made in house since 1983 come through a drive-thru window at Zarlengo’s Italian Ice & Gelato on Joe Orr Road in Chicago Heights, and a breakfast of pancakes, crepes and skillets is a few blocks away at Big Apple Pancake House on Western Avenue.
• Thorn Creek Woods Nature Preserve in Park Forest has trails through old-growth forest and a nature center in a former church.