Everyone has a friend or relative who has made a killing in real estate because they bought in the next hot neighborhood back when it wasn’t even lukewarm. We call these prophetic buyers urban pioneers, and they’re something of a tradition in the Windy City.

Maybe that’s because Chicago’s neighborhoods are almost always evolving. In fact you don’t have to dig too deep to discover that Lincoln Park was once a working class neighborhood, the South Loop was once a giant parking lot and Hyde Park was once a suburb!

For many Chicagoans, pioneering is a conscious choice. Some people are just more comfortable living on the edge. For others, pioneering is a necessity. They get priced out of more developed areas, so they go one more stop on the line and wind up looking like a genius.

There are a few telltale signs that a neighborhood has the potential to pop.

Urban pioneers generally look for:

• Fully developed neighboring communities
• An abundance of rehab activity
• Proximity to transportation including commuter rail lines and expressways
• An active retail district
• A major cultural or civic amenity that forms the heart of the neighborhood
• Recent public works projects such as streetscape improvements