How do you determine the CBD?

[DMZwerg]

I typically refer to the proximity to Chicago in my appraisals even if located in a rural setting to give an out of state reviewer an idea as to where the heck Bonfield is located. I then go on to state the pertinent factors in and of the subjects market. Even though Chicago has little effect on Bonfield it is the nearest metropolitan area.

example: The subjects town/ market is located 35 miles south and west of Chicago in Kankakee county.........

It depends.

If I am working on a gentleman's estate where the typical buyer is a Chicago exec then making reference to Chicago would not be out of place, and when dealing with the City of Kenosha, which is part of Chicagoland (even though located in WI) again sometimes such references are warranted even though Kenosha has a population of over 90,000 and its own CBD. It depends on which is more significant to the local appraisal. For Milwaukee it is large enough that Chicago has little to no influence in Milwaukee County nor in any of the adjacent counties. An oddball is Racine County which, although located between Kenosha & Milwaukee, is fiercely independent with only one community along the northern boarder a "bedroom community" of Milwaukee and NONE bedroom communities of Chicago last I checked. Racine County has 2 cities each with their own CBD and in fact parts of western Kenosha County are more closely associated with Burlington than with Kenosha or Chicago. The City of Racine is smaller than the City of Kenosha but has its own distinct business districts and the CBDs are associated with neither Milwaukee nor Chicago (Racine used to be the 2nd largest city in WI but due to much less aggressive annexation policies is now 5th largest, right behind Kenosha & Green Bay). In both Racine & Kenosha counties there are a number of smaller communities which have their own CBDs and that are not so connected to the larger ones nearby (Union Grove, Paddock Lake, Twin Lakes, etc).

If I were to examine one of those smaller communities, say Twin Lakes, I would likely make mention of it being primarily a resort community, make mention of Chicagoland, and then talk about the local CBD, even though a number of larger CBDs are nearby (Paddock Lake, Burlington, Kenosha) and more distant (Waukegan, Milwaukee, and then Chicago). The main influences are clearly Twin Lakes & Chicagoland.