Fiber is infrastructure. Treat it that way.

The Chicago suburbs didn’t become one of the most economically productive regions in the country by accident. Highways, rail lines, utilities and municipal services created the conditions for businesses to grow, families to put down roots and communities to compete for talent and investment.

Every generation faces a version of this question: what’s the infrastructure that determines who wins and who falls behind? Right now, the answer is fiber.

Communities with access to high-speed, reliable fiber networks are attracting remote workers with household incomes that reshape local tax bases. They’re landing corporate facilities that require serious bandwidth. They’re enabling small businesses that couldn’t exist in a pre-connected economy. Research from the Fiber Broadband Association documents that fiber access increases residential property values by 3% to 6%, a signal that the market already understands what planners are sometimes slow to recognize.

The broader Chicago-area suburbs are well-positioned, but position isn’t destiny. The communities that proactively invest in next-generation infrastructure, that treat connectivity the way a previous generation treated road access, will have a structural advantage in attracting the businesses, workers and families driving the next decade of regional growth.

Fiber isn’t a luxury amenity. It’s a foundation. And like most foundations, the cost of not building it compounds over time in ways that are difficult to recover from.

The build out happening across Downers Grove, Naperville and Roselle today is a window, not a permanent condition. Residents should ask their local officials where fiber infrastructure ranks on the community’s economic development agenda. The answer will say a lot about where that community is headed.

Greg Thomas

Naperville