USA TODAY . . . Wednesday, March 26; 3A: Headline: small-town appeal spurs big time gain; Sub headline: Illinois' Kendall is USA's fastest-growing county.

(I don't have a scanner, so the pictures and graph are not included here: the first picture is the bridge [next to G&G's] showing lots of traffic [not that much, according to me]; the second picture is someone building a house in Yorkville; a graph shows that Kendall County has grown from c, 10,000 people when our mothers were born to almost 100,000 today [and doubled within the last 10 years]; a map shows the county and its location in Illinois; the last picture is of Yorkville's 40-ish mayor, Valerie Burd. Any cuts or side-comments I've made in this article are in square brackets.)

David Splayt is part of a population explosion that has made Kendall County the fastest-growing county in the USA.

Splayt, his wife, Cindy, and their two children moved into a four-bedroom house here in 2005. They paid about the same price in a development called Windett Ridge [!!!!! Our mothers' cousin Joyce was married to Ellsworth Windett . . . how many Windett families with land could there have been in Yorkville?] as they got for their old home in Hickory Hills, a Chicago suburb. They doubled their square footage and doubled their distance from downtown Chicago, from 30 miles to 60.

The Splayts' home was the 18th house in the subdivision; there are now five times as many. Splayt, 41, who works for AT&T, says this city of 15,204 [I think it was about 2,000 when Grandma finally moved after Grandpa's death] - up from 6,189 in 2000 - keeps getting better. "The schools are good, the kids are happy, there are good youth programs, lots of new restaurants," [there were two - count 'em - two restaurants when we were kids visiting: The Barley Fork (in town) which we never went to, and something called The Country Kitchen near 'The Greeks' {the only supermarket}] he says.

The secret is the small town atmosphere that for decades has enticed people to move father and farther from big cities: space, simplicity and reasonably priced homes. Developments here advertise $170,000 town homes, $250,000 houses - much cheaper than comparable properties in Chicago and closer-in suburbs.

Kendall County, which includes a small part of Joliet,[ increased 77.5% in seven years . . .].

Yorkville and other Kendall County communities are emblematic of an appealing life-style, but they also exemplify the challenges that accompany an influx of newcomers. There are no hospitals in the county. There's no public transportation. Most roads have just two lanes. In Yorkville, the county seat, there's one bridge over the Fox River [OUR BRIDGE!], which bisects the city. Everyone complains about the traffic.

There's also a feeling among some residents that as the rural atmosphere of their communities changes, they are losing what they love most about their hometowns.

"The growth is heading out way, and we don't like it," says Gary Fruland, mayor of Newark, where the population has doubled to 1,000 since his childhood. The town's water tower and sewer system can't serve any more people, he says. Neighbors such as Yorkville "are just exploding and I think they're a little bit out of control," he says.

Yorkville Mayor Valerie Burd says debate about saving the city was raging when she moved here 21 years ago. "Downtown was dying, stores were closing," she says. [Heck, there weren't that many stores. Webster's Drugstore, of course, a lawn and seed store, a dry goods store . . . . anyone remember other ones?] Residents realized that "if things don't change, the whole town is dying."

When housing developers started buying land, officials tried to anticipate Yorkville's future needs. They required developers to install water towers and oversize water mains. Now the water system can accommodate 30,000 residents, twice the current population.

Yorkville created a community development department to manage growth and an economic development corporation to attract retailers and employers to share the tax burden. Boundary agreements with neighboring towns were negotiated to control development standards. The city bought land for parks and bike trails. City government grew with the population: In 1998, there were 34 full-time employees. Now there are 92.

The ailing economy has slowed housing construction, giving the city time to focus on commercial development and streets. Still, 25 residential projects are at various stages of development. "That's a slow-down," Burd says.

County government also is trying to keep up with the demands of a growing population. The county raised sales taxes twice to help pay for improvements to transportation and public safety and residents twice approved property-tax referendums to protect open spaces. The county Jail's capacity was 14 in 1992 and is now about 200, says John church, chairman of the Kendall County board. [Etc. etc.]

[The rest of the article centers on Lisbon, a village of under 300 people around 13 miles south of Yorkville: many residents of Lisbon do not want Yorkville-style growth. A Lisbon-born worker at the hospital in Morris (c. 20 miles south, just outside of Kendall county) complains about the effects of the population explosion in the emergency room. The article ends with an up-beat quote from the president of the Yorkville Area Chamber of Commerce. "A lot of times people resist change, " (Greg])Millen says, "but you've got to embrace it, be creative, find ways to make communities stronger."]