Divide Illinois in 2 (Chicago, Detroit: transplants, sales, sales tax)

[Jons99]

Originally Posted by pi314159

Too bad the original dividing line between the Wisconsin teritory and Illinois wasn't kept. Then we'd have Chicago, Wisconsin....has a nice ring to it to me....

The idea of being like South Dakota or Arkansas must be very appealing to you...

[computerguysd]

You know, there's a reason that property values continue to rise in South Dakota.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by computerguysd

You know, there's a reason that property values continue to rise in South Dakota.

Just like there's a reason property values are much higher and rising faster in the Chicago area than most of rural Illinois...

[pi314159]

Originally Posted by Jons99

The idea of being like South Dakota or Arkansas must be very appealing to you...

Yeah, their state budgets are balanced and they don't have a gov. spending money he doesn't have on a city that doesn't deserve it.

[Jons99]

1.Who are you to decide who deserves money and who doesn't????

2. You need the phone number to U-Haul to move your stuff to either of those places??

[jojojohnson76]

Originally Posted by Jons99

1.Who are you to decide who deserves money and who doesn't????

Aren't you the one that is constantly rambling on about how southern Illinois doesn't deserve this and that, while most forum dwellers (including Chicagoans) disagree and dismiss, if not ignore your posts? So, who are you to decide southern Illinois doesn't deserve anything?

Thank you.

[Frank the Tank]

This is a tangential issue (since this dividing the state into 2 argument is pretty pointless), but I have seen several posts on this thread that claim that Chicago has "dumped" poor people downstate. I can see how people without financial means come to individual conclusions that they can't afford to live in the Chicago area anymore and move someplace with a lower COL, but how is this "dumping"? That implies some sort of concerted government effort to take such action (when I really just think this is basic free market economics at work). Please explain.

[Drover]

People here have actually claimed that the city of Chicago is filling buses with indigents and shipping them downstate and dropping them off there. It's kind of hilarious.

[pi314159]

Actually the City of Chicago is sort of shipping some of it's population downstate. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) in 2006 cut it's housing voucher program by $25 million. Because of the lack of vouchers available in the Chicago area, many low income residents did indeed move to Decatur, Rantoul & Danville, where housing vouchers where still available.

This is NOT fiction, but fact. So don't act so all high and mighty when your own city won't support it's own.

[Drover]

Don't give me this "support its own" crap. For starters, the CHA alone provides well over $300 million in housing assistance per year. That doesn't even count 50 million in additional tenant services, 30 million to provide security, etc. And that's just one single agency.

Second, we are not a zoo and the indigent are not animals that we own. They are just as free to come and go as anyone else is. This city has long been a magnet for the poor by providing social services on a far broader scale than downstate cities, all while smug downstaters like yourself pretend like you own the moral high road. The state (the whole region, really) has been dumping its poor on us for decades now. The city doesn't owe housing vouchers to anyone, and we don't owe a duty to downstaters to act as a poverty magnet. It's time you took on some of the burden. We've done well beyond our fair share.

"High and mighty" indeed.