Chicago, WI: the. One variable change (Aurora, Peoria: 2014, movers, how much)
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The year is 1818. The territory of Illinois is applying to enter the union. Some people in this region tied to the Mississippi River basin have no concerns about the future state’s northern border. That there is access nearby to the Great Lakes is irrelevant
Others see Lake Michigan access as being economic benefit and push for the state line t be moved to give the new state a shoreline
Happily the lame brained idea was dumped in the trash where it belonged. The mighty metropolis on the Ohio at Illinois’s southern tip, Shawnee rightfully exposed the Great Lakes insanity by crationally explaining how it being in the region where three mighty rivers meet, Illinois was set for life with this midcontinent river city as it center
The Shawneetown bankers and movers and shakers on LaSalle Lane won the day:
Illinois would have no shoreline. And no Chicago
So thus by inroducing one and only one variable, we get:
Chicago, Wisconsin
So any way and every way from 1818 to 2018, what ways would things be different in the following four places
The year is 1818. The territory of Illinois is applying to enter the union. Some people in this region tied to the Mississippi River basin have no concerns about the future state’s northern border. That there is access nearby to the Great Lakes is irrelevant
Others see Lake Michigan access as being economic benefit and push for the state line t be moved to give the new state a shoreline
Happily the lame brained idea was dumped in the trash where it belonged. The mighty metropolis on the Ohio at Illinois’s southern tip, Shawnee rightfully exposed the Great Lakes insanity by crationally explaining how it being in the region where three mighty rivers meet, Illinois was set for life with this midcontinent river city as it center
The Shawneetown bankers and movers and shakers on LaSalle Lane won the day:
Illinois would have no shoreline. And no Chicago
So thus by inroducing one and only one variable, we get:
Chicago, Wisconsin
So any way and every way from 1818 to 2018, what ways would things be different in the following four places
Chicago
Illnois
Wisconsin
Milwaukee
???
Interesting question. What would've been the proposed northern boundary of Illinois, then? I've read about this before but always forget the proposed cutoff.
I think Chicago would still play a similar role but as part of Wisconsin. I think Milwaukee itself would be a bit smaller but like a much larger version of Joliet/Elgin/Aurora. I think there would've been far more development along the lake between Chicago and Milwaukee than currently exists.
Illinois would more resemble Iowa but with St. Louis as a larger MSA than it currently is today. Maybe Peoria's MSA would likely be larger with Chicago no longer the dominant city in the state.
Wisconsin would be more like current-day Illinois in terms of national importance.
Illinois would be more like Iowa or Indiana; Chicago (the city) would still be an outlier, assuming it got as big as it is today; Milwaukee would probably be smaller and less important; many of the suburbs would still be somewhat generic Midwestern; you'd have the same rural-urban tensions; the hypothetically unrealized new state of Wisconsin would now be a fiscal basket case. But without connecting the Chicago river to the Illinois river, things could've been drastically different. Who knows.
Based on the current dynamics, I think Chicago would have ended up being far more comfortable in Wisconsin than in Illinois. Southern Illinois in many ways is the South. Northern Wisconsin is part of the North along with Chicago.
Chicago would feel more connected to Wisconsin. We vacation there and we are comfortable in the state which can seem more familiar to us than downstate Illinois does.
There would definitely be a question of what Milwaukee would be like being in the same state as Chicago. On the plus (very plus) side, I suspect the links between the two cities who have been strengthened, that the I-94 corridor, already a product of its location between the two cities would be strengthened. On the down side, Milwaukee might not be as important as it is today as WI's major city.
My guess: an expanded state government and a far larger population affecting UW enrollment, I would think Madison would be bigger and more major than it is (Madison is already major....I'm just suggesting more so). Interesting perspective: what would it mean to have the whole Chgo-Milw-Madison triangle all in the same state?
Illinois would be more Indiana than it would Iowa. If we work on the assumption that the vast majority of states do have at least one major city of consequence, it would be interesting to speculate which one that would be. A non-Great Lakes Illinois would likely have a river city as its main one. St. Louis pretty much knocks out the competition in So. IL. Peoria is a possibility as it would still be connected to both the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin of which it is a part. So if Chicago-to-New Orleans shipping was a major thing, Peoria might have a major role.
But the Illinois River is neither the Mississippi or Ohio and I'm not sure this would provide the right environment for a port.
If I placed a bet, it would be the Quad Cities that would be key (on the Illinois side, of course; Iowa has Des Moines so there is no reason to think Davenport would be it). The Quad Cities make sense on spacing down the Mississippi, a fairly logical progression from Twin Cities to Quad Cities, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans.
Illinois would be more like Iowa or Indiana; Chicago (the city) would still be an outlier, assuming it got as big as it is today; Milwaukee would probably be smaller and less important; many of the suburbs would still be somewhat generic Midwestern; you'd have the same rural-urban tensions; the hypothetically unrealized new state of Wisconsin would now be a fiscal basket case. But without connecting the Chicago river to the Illinois river, things could've been drastically different. Who knows.
why a basket case?
the Chicago River-canal-Illinois River is a most interesting point to bring up. Is the fact that the canal project would need to involve two states be a big impediment (impediment it would be....the question is how much). Seems to me that both IL and WI would have benefitted from this arrangement as the canal that potentially runs through both states would be the finishing connection of the NY-NO water route.
the Chicago River-canal-Illinois River is a most interesting point to bring up. Is the fact that the canal project would need to involve two states be a big impediment (impediment it would be....the question is how much). Seems to me that both IL and WI would have benefitted from this arrangement as the canal that potentially runs through both states would be the finishing connection of the NY-NO water route.
Just look at the current fiscal condition of Illinois, which has basically been run by Chicago-area politicians and landed the state where it currently is. It would be no different in this unrealized scenario from two centuries ago.
As for being “more like Wisconsin,” Chicago really isn’t anymore like most of Wisconsin. In fact, most of the small cities and rural communities in Illinois have more in common with those places in Wisconsin, which dominate most of the state (not super urban, sports, hunting, fishing culture, less diversity, less urban, big emphasis on agriculture and farming). Chicago is the outlier here, not Wisconsin or Illinois, and the suburbs could be more or less be anywhere in the Midwest with a few exceptions.
From link:
Chicago residents today might have had a Wisconsin zip code if the originally proposed northern boundary of Illinois had been approved.
- it was a straight line from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan to just south of the Rock and Mississippi River confluence.
- Illinois has Nathaniel Pope to thank for the additional farmland, population, and lakefront propert
- the northern border was moved north to allow the linkage of the Great Lakes shipping route to the Illinois and Mississippi river navigation channels, giving Illinois a valuable shoreline on Lake Michigan and a location for a shipping port hub which became Chicago.
- Pope was Illinois Territory’s congressional delegate at the time,” explained Olson. “He and his brother, a Kentucky senator, were able to convince Congress to move the proposed border to its present-day location—and that shift in the northern boundary completely altered the fortunes of Wisconsin and Illinois.
- the economic benefits of the Chicago port, Illinois acquired 5.5 million acres of very productive soil for farming.
Chicago, Wisconsin? How The Windy City Almost Ended Up In The Badger State
Tensions Over Slavery Pushed Wisconsin's Border North In 1818.
From link:
- Mississippi, a slave state, entered the Union in 1817 so the north needed another state.
- Illinois seemed like the best bet but there was a problem in that most of the population lived in the southern part of the state.
- many of these settlers were from Kentucky and Tennessee and tended to support slavery.
- but if Illinois was given a port on Lake Michigan, then it could develop trade ties to the free northeast and grow its northern population.
So, just as Congress voted on Illinois statehood, the resolution was amended to move the border 50 miles northward, robbing the future state of Wisconsin its territory, though we had too few citizens living here at the time to protest.
Protests did occur in northern Illinois, however, which voted to secede from Illinois and join the Wisconsin territory in the 1840s. These votes carried no weight, however, and when Wisconsin became a state in 1848, the border stayed just where it had been.
From link:
Chicago residents today might have had a Wisconsin zip code if the originally proposed northern boundary of Illinois had been approved.
- it was a straight line from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan to just south of the Rock and Mississippi River confluence.
- Illinois has Nathaniel Pope to thank for the additional farmland, population, and lakefront propert
- the northern border was moved north to allow the linkage of the Great Lakes shipping route to the Illinois and Mississippi river navigation channels, giving Illinois a valuable shoreline on Lake Michigan and a location for a shipping port hub which became Chicago.
- Pope was Illinois Territory’s congressional delegate at the time,” explained Olson. “He and his brother, a Kentucky senator, were able to convince Congress to move the proposed border to its present-day location—and that shift in the northern boundary completely altered the fortunes of Wisconsin and Illinois.
- the economic benefits of the Chicago port, Illinois acquired 5.5 million acres of very productive soil for farming.
Chicago, Wisconsin? How The Windy City Almost Ended Up In The Badger State
Tensions Over Slavery Pushed Wisconsin's Border North In 1818.
From link:
- Mississippi, a slave state, entered the Union in 1817 so the north needed another state.
- Illinois seemed like the best bet but there was a problem in that most of the population lived in the southern part of the state.
- many of these settlers were from Kentucky and Tennessee and tended to support slavery.
- but if Illinois was given a port on Lake Michigan, then it could develop trade ties to the free northeast and grow its northern population.
So, just as Congress voted on Illinois statehood, the resolution was amended to move the border 50 miles northward, robbing the future state of Wisconsin its territory, though we had too few citizens living here at the time to protest.
Protests did occur in northern Illinois, however, which voted to secede from Illinois and join the Wisconsin territory in the 1840s. These votes carried no weight, however, and when Wisconsin became a state in 1848, the border stayed just where it had been.
Dave, your citing "illinois.edu" gives rise to a thought that we would have been far more fortunate if our flagship university was located in Madison rather than Champaign Urbana. Which would make sense, considering that our fortunes would have been far greater if our capital was Madison, not Springfield.
Dave, your citing "illinois.edu" gives rise to a thought that we would have been far more fortunate if our flagship university was located in Madison rather than Champaign Urbana. Which would make sense, considering that our fortunes would have been far greater if our capital was Madison, not Springfield.
Wow, this is a really sad. No wonder so many people in downstate Illinois and Wisconsin have negative feelings towards those in Chicagoland.
Wow, this is a really sad. No wonder so many people in downstate Illinois and Wisconsin have negative feelings towards those in Chicagoland.
Exactly what is sad about wanting Madison as a state capital and state university site? I would imagine any state would love to have a Madison for its capital and college town. It is, y'know, MADISON.
Did I make some blanket indictment of all of downstate IL that I was unaware of? If the U of I were in Galena, I hardly think I would be saying anything negative about the location. And if our flagship public university were in another twin cities than Champaign Urbana.....I'm talking about Bloomington Normal....I wouldn't be saying the same thing.
My fear is that your Chicago bashing puts the Windy City in a bad light in downstate IL and all of Wisconsin.
But look at it this way, Main: maybe you and i are doing our best to put our state in a bad light: me on downstate and you on Chicago.
You and I could join forces and make things a true trifecta by going after suburban Chicago. I'm suggesting a motto we could use:
"Suburban Chicago is an ef-fin' collar (counties) stain.
So tell me, Main: are you a Springfield and Chambana lover? Among midwest capitals, Springfield is more like Lansing (which isn't a good thing) than it is with St. Paul, Des Moines, Madison, Indianapolis and Columbus. As a college town, most would think C/U is not in the caliber of Iowa City, Madison, Bloomington, or Ann Arbor.
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