How do you save a small town? (Chicago, Champaign: sales, real estate market)

[ofrashop]

Brooklyn, Illinois, is one of the oldest towns in America. It was incorporated in 1873. It is circling the drain. What can be done to save it?

[ofrashop]

Where is Brookly Illinois located?

[Southlander]

1873? That's not old. Sorry.
As for what can be done to save it...maybe you can tell us more. Have businesses closed? Hard to live somewhere when you can't make any money. Are there any attractions nearby, like mountains or water? Give us some clues, please!

[Drover]

Some small towns cannot be saved. There is only so much you can do to fight economic and demographic trends. Now that farming is highly mechanized, we simply don't need as many small towns as we used to. Some will still hang on and serve as satellite bedroom communities to larger cities, such as St. Joseph and Monticello to Champaign/Urbana. Others will hang on for tourist value, such as Arthur and Galena. Some of the rest just don't have much of a prayer. Such is the creative destruction of an ever-changing economy.

Others have noted... 1873 just ain't that old. There are cities in this country that can trace their European settlement roots back to the 16th century. 1873 isn't even that old by Illinois standards.

[HOWELL_STREET]

Dear Friends:

There are enough "just - becoming - retired" elderly people located every where in the larger Illinois cities. Most of these people are just fed up with the demographics of such a large city. So to rejuvenate Broklyn, one must advertise its real estate at very reasonable prices. There are still small communities in Southern Illinois where one can buy an old but still usable house - - including four acres of land - - for a total of about $40K. Would you NOT expect retired city people to notice that? So your town has to be advertised for its amenities, etc - - as a nice town to live in.
If you want an example, go visit nearby Rushville, IL. No $40K homes, there, but they can be 'had' for $50K in Rushville. The $40K home would be located in Nason, IL for example.

Best Regards,

CARTER GLASS

[gardener34]

Yes - I agree with carter glass. I would do some marketing. And if the schools are far away and/or not that great, market to seniors who don't care about that kind of thing anymore.
We ourselves are looking for an inexpensive house with some acreage, out of chicagoland eventually.
Also, People who would move there from chicagoland with $$ would not be afraid to do a teardown if necessary. You may consider courting some developers to the area. Although that can be like dancing with the devil.

[johnrex62]

You can drop the bottom out of the real estate market and attract some folk certainly, but will the serious investor or retiree flock to a location that cannot support their investment with stable values? You may shoot yourself in the foot in the long run on that ploy.

For the long term, you must distinguish what sets the town apart from anything else close by. You must create a product of the town. Some towns have a historic industry that people are interested in viewing, some towns have a thriving antique store trade, other towns have a theme park, or zoo, or outlet center, or architecture, or recreation opportunities.

Whatever you can create or market better will provide the economic center to build the residential community upon. Only after money in coming into the town will people arrive in numbers to stay.

Marketing is great, once you have something serious to market.

[HOWELL_STREET]

Would you graciously permit me a few comments? I reside in Wheaton, IL where new homes are approaching one - million dollars. On the flip side, the lower side of new homes in Wheaton is about $500K. And the taxes are in excess of $10K per house.
In Wheaton and other parts of the Chicago collar counties, homes are stagnated in sales. And a good reason is that people are starting to lose their well paid jobs for less remuneration. So maintaining an expensive real estate price base line in 'X' town - - where ever - - may not be a good idea. Housing prices have increased at a tremendous rate since about 1971 in the Wheaton area. In 1971, my folks bought their brand new house for $34K.
Many people including young and old cannot afford those expensive home prices and so they move away. In the case of an investor - - of course they want to maintain higher prices.
So in our economy, right now, SOMETHING is going to have to 'give' very quickly.
A VERY good book to read is the "Florida Land Boom and Collapse of the 1920s". Although that hard cover book is priced around $100, you can find it through the Interloan Library System. Like the Florida 1920s situation, we are also headed in the same direction.
Since my son is a mortgage processor for a Wheaton area bank - - that is where much of my information comes from.
PLEASE have a nice day !

Best Regards,

Carter Glass

[Scribbler]

I'd not heard of Brooklyn, but seeing as it obviously wouldn't predate colonial era towns, and even here in IL, my town and most near me predate 1873 in their founding, I, too dispute the "one of the oldest towns" assertion.

When I looked it up, wikipedia told me that it is, in fact "the oldest BLACK town" in the country.

Brooklyn (popularly known as Lovejoy), is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. Located just north of East St. Louis, Illinois, it is the oldest black town in the United States. It is named for Elijah P. Lovejoy (1802-1837), an abolitionist from St. Louis.

In 1829, led by "Mother" Priscilla Baltimore, a group of eleven families composed of both fugitive and quasi-free Blacks fled slavery in St. Louis, Missouri, crossed the Mississippi River, and established a maroon community in the wilderness of southwestern Illinois. In 1830, five white abolitionists platted the land and created an unincorporated nearly all-black town. In 1873, the virtually all-black town was incorporated as a village. In 1886, the overwhelming African American majority gained complete political control, which initiated a process of white flight and soon converted Brooklyn into an all-black town. The population was 676 at the 2000 census.

Brooklyn suffers from the same economic blight and high crime rate that affects the East St. Louis area in general. A major feature of its economy is a cluster of bars and strip clubs. In June 2007, it was reported that three-quarters of Brooklyn's revenue of $380,000 comes through sales tax and a $30,000 licensing fee from the adult clubs.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by HOWELL_STREET

Would you graciously permit me a few comments? I reside in Wheaton, IL where new homes are approaching one - million dollars. On the flip side, the lower side of new homes in Wheaton is about $500K. And the taxes are in excess of $10K per house.
In Wheaton and other parts of the Chicago collar counties, homes are stagnated in sales. And a good reason is that people are starting to lose their well paid jobs for less remuneration. So maintaining an expensive real estate price base line in 'X' town - - where ever - - may not be a good idea. Housing prices have increased at a tremendous rate since about 1971 in the Wheaton area. In 1971, my folks bought their brand new house for $34K.
Many people including young and old cannot afford those expensive home prices and so they move away. In the case of an investor - - of course they want to maintain higher prices.
So in our economy, right now, SOMETHING is going to have to 'give' very quickly.
A VERY good book to read is the "Florida Land Boom and Collapse of the 1920s". Although that hard cover book is priced around $100, you can find it through the Interloan Library System. Like the Florida 1920s situation, we are also headed in the same direction.
Since my son is a mortgage processor for a Wheaton area bank - - that is where much of my information comes from.
PLEASE have a nice day !

Best Regards,

Carter Glass

Housing prices are simply tied to supply and demand from natural economic forces- they can't be "maintained" at a base line by artificial means. While I'm sure that there is an element of stagnating housing prices in the Chicago area and most of the rest of the county due to some people losing jobs, for the most part those houses aren't moving because of higher interest rates coupled by a too many would-be sellers trying to cash in on the rise in home prices at the same time. Even though the Chicago area isn't cheap when looking at the sticker price, when you look at the income-to-housing price ratio, it's nowhere near as out of whack as New York City or the California cities.

At the end of the day, cheap housing prices alone does not attract people, whether you're talking about small towns such as Brooklyn or large cities like Detroit. Otherwise, Danville, Illinois would be a boomtown while people would stop moving to New York City altogether. Obviously, that's simply not the case.

As noted by others, a small town's best hope will be to find a niche that will attract a critical mass of tourists and retirees. Just having cheap open land isn't going to be enough - while you'll find a handful of people that will want to just buy a large open space when they retire and that's enough for them, most retirees want to find a place where there's going to be a lot of social and recreational activities to spend their days. Historically, city neighborhoods experience revitalization when they attract artists since it gives the area a base of creative people, and the same thing could be applied to smaller towns. Of course, that's easier said than done. Most of the time, this just has to happen organically - marketing programs to try to attract artists usually don't work.