Has Evanston left Oak Park behind?

The Skyscrapper Page forum had an interesting thread, Favorite/Worst Chicago Suburbs, that seems to have gotten more traffic (43 posts) than suburban threads usually do here. I was surprised to see how many people felt Evanston was the ultimate suburb and how the "new Evanston" affords an uban/suburban environment unparralled in suburban Chicago. A number of posts discussed the extraordinary change Evanston has experienced in recent years. Many of you probably know that Evanston and Oak Park had (have?) a spirited rivalry that goes back to the 19th c. They share so much in common: dowager suburbs, the first north and west of Chicago, with similiar grand old homes, similiar downtowns (they used to have identical Marshall Field's), similiar in size, similiar in how they related to their North Shore and west suburban bases, walkable tree-lined streets, mix of homes and apratments, sense of community, similiar CTA/Metra connections, and alot more. Evanston has acquired more of the feel of a thrieving North Side lakefront neighborhood in the city than Oak Park has (perhaps because Evanston shares the lakefront with those Chgo neighborhoods). Sure Evanston has the lake and NU and Oak Park has all that grand FLW architecture, but there were far more similiarities than differences. Or are they? Have the two become more different than alike today? Both have had more than their fair share of gentrification, cashing in on their close-in to the city locations and excellent public transportation connections. But Evanston appears to have developed far more. Downtown Oak Park is a mere fraction of dowtown Evanston's size. Evanston is having a downtown building boom with condos and high end stores that just isn't happening to the same degree in Oak Park; downtown Evanston has no obscene bottle neckes like Harlme Ave. Evanston's building boom also is taking place in other transit oriented areas (i.e. Chicago Ave) that again Oak Park cannot parrallel. Evanston's restauratns have become legandary and exceed even the excellent selection that Oak Park has. Northwestern continues to thrieve and build. Have we reached a point where Evanston has left Oak Park in the dust, or are the two really still quite competitive?>