Illinois is lacking a second city (Chicago, Rockford: insurance, attorney, home)

[Chicagoland60426]

For Illinois being the largest state in the midwest and the 5th most populated state in the country, its lacking a second city after Chicago. What I mean by second city is there is no alternative large city after Chicago in Illinois. Comparing Illinois to other midwestern states, its seem like a one city state. For ex. Minnesota have Minneapolis & St. Paul, Ohio have Cleveland, Cincinatti, Toledo, and Columbus, Missouri have St. Louis & Kansas City, and even Wisconsin have Milwaukee & Madison. All these Midwestern states have in common is they all have two or more cities with over 200,000 population. However, Illinois just have Chicago. Peoria have a potential to get pass the 200,000 mark with the nice river and skyline, but it just haven't grew that much. I'm not including Chicago large suburbs, because they are part of the metro area. So do anybody else find this kind of odd that Illinois is basically a one city state?

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Chicagoland60426

So do anybody else find this kind of odd that Illinois is basically a one city state?

No.

See also: Michigan, Indiana, Iowa.

[asearchforreason]

Originally Posted by Chicagoland60426

I'm not including Chicago large suburbs, because they are part of the metro area. So do anybody else find this kind of odd that Illinois is basically a one city state?

Several problems here:
Minneapolis and St. Paul are basically the same city.
Why does Kansas city count for Kansas but St. Louis does not count for Illinois?
Quad Cities area is actually slightly larger than Peoria and neither one is that much smaller than Madison.

I suppose I understand what you are saying. Illinois is definitely dominated by Chicago. Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign, Springfield, Quad Cities are all decent sized cities though. If it's big enough to have an airport with more than 3 flights a day, it counts as a city in my book.

[chet everett]

I guess you have never heard of Peoria (Obama landed a thing called Air Force One there a few days ago), or Rockford (International Airport, large manufacturing base) or Bloomington (university and home to giant insurance company) or Springfield ( State Capital, Lincoln mania center) or ChamBana (BigTen University, major computer science hub for researchers and industry) or Carbondale (University, US Attorney's office for Southern Ill region United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

I don't see any problem...

[Chicagoland60426]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

No.

See also: Michigan, Indiana, Iowa.

Well Iowa is a rather small state. I heard Michigan is not doing too well in the first place, since the largest city in the state is not pleasing. And Indiana is just blah. Illinois is the largest state of its region and don't have a alternative or a second city with at least 200,000 population. Even NY have Buffalo. Pennsylvania is around the same size as Illinois and they have Philly and Pittsburg.

[chet everett]

I see nothing magic about having 200,000 residents.

I have been to Pittsburg and Philadelphia and all the cities you listed in Ohio and they are not all that much better than any of Illinois' second tier cities.

[Avengerfire]

Rockford is at least 175k (2006 estimated) and probably close to 200k now.

It is not in the Chicago "metro" area.

[QuadCityImages]

Iowa is hardly a 1 city state. The biggest city isn't even twice as big as the next biggest. You could just as easily call Wisconsin a 1 city state in that case.

There are plenty of states where one metro truly dominates: Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, Oklahoma, maybe Kentucky, Michigan, etc, etc...

That said, I do think Illinois would be better off if Chicago didn't dominate things quite as much.

[Maintainschaos]

Central Illinois could "pretend" to be the 2nd city region. I understand that the cities themselves (Peoria, B/N, Springfield, Decatur, C/U) are spaced out, but they're not too far from each other and, combined all together, I think the region is well over 1,000,000 people. That being said, don't forget these single-city dominated states:

Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, etc...It's not all that uncommon.

[Dukester]

Heres another view... I live out in Puget Sound North of Seattle and Chicago dominates out here in news. I am not talking politcs either but news in general both good and bad. It dominates over L.A. hands down.