These burglaries are on the north end of town, not northeast, where houses are especially nice and residents are generally more affluent.
Oak Park police have issued a neighborhood alert following four residential burglaries within a four hour period early Wednesday morning. The burglaries occurred within a roughly four square block area bounded by Division on the north, Chicago on the south, Oak Park to the west and Ridgeland to the east
Details:
Three of the homes were entered through unlocked rear doors, and one through an open window. Numerous valuables were stolen while homeowners slept inside.
Oh boy. While they slept.
Cops are on it. Indeed, they have been getting results. But those unlocked back doors bespeak a confidence in one’s safety that is proving unrealistic.
Blithe Spirit 
I agree with you about the overconfidence when it comes to safety in Oak Park. I say it all the time and it make some people mad, but when you look at many of the crimes in our community, they’re crimes of opportunity (unlocked windows, wallet left in plain sight inside car, etc.) because people don’t take the necessary precautions. I live near the area where these robberies took place and I’m not even remotely concerned. Why? Because I make sure all my doors and windows are locked every night. Come on people, it’s not that hard.
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You and Becca and the cops are of course all correct about taking precautions…I submit this simply as a random remembrance from a more innocent time when I lived in both Austin and Oak Park, and NEVER had to lock the doors….I know, I know, that’s all gone now…but not the sweetness of the memory…methinks philosophers more than urbanologists can explain this!
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I just came across this old exchange….I still feel an almost inordinate affection for the goodness of the Oak Park I knew and loved for the first 25 years of my life…I don’t know if my thoughts here are permitted to appear, but they do each day at http://www.ChicagoNow c/o “Taking A Second Look”….where I still express a fondness for your (my)home town
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