Do they want to secede...or kick out Chicago? (Rockford: school, tax)

[jdiddy]

The last thing we need is 2 more senators representing a handful of white people and a shihload of corn.

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by edsg25

The Trip suggested that his intension wasn't really about seceding from Illinois as much as it was about kicking Chicago out.

What's the difference?

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by edsg25

The United States would be completely crushed without the money from Chicago. And New York. Los Angeles, too.

No.

[KoNgFooCj]

The weird thing about Illinois is such a high percentage of its population lives in its biggest city's metropolitan area. I feel like New York is the only other state like that. Probably because Illinois doesn't have a 2nd major city.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by KoNgFooCj

The weird thing about Illinois is such a high percentage of its population lives in its biggest city's metropolitan area. I feel like New York is the only other state like that. Probably because Illinois doesn't have a 2nd major city.

I can't think of any other state that is viewed in terms of the city/metro area dominating the rest (upstate, downstate) of the state like New York and Illinois.

Boston isn't viewed as dominating Massachusetts (which it does) but as dominating New England. But area wise, New England is incredibly small. While that city/rest of the state thing may exist in Baltimore, Atlanta, New Orleans, Denver, etc....its not quite center stage as it is in IL and NY.

why might Chicago/Illinois be the best example? Sure it is dwarfed by NYC, but Buffalo is a major city and there is nothing like it in Illinois. So there is that. New York would have some common issues that Buffalo has as well. Chicago has far fewer with any city: Rockford, Peoria, Quad Cities, etc.

NYS is the Catskills and the Hudson Valley, Niagara Falls and Cornell ivy. Of course upstate is dominated by New York, but it still makes a very noticeable place.

When you leave the Chicago area, you are stuck in Illinois. I'm not trying to put down my state and there are things I definitely like about downstate (one being Galena which manages due to the 800 lb. Chicagoland in the room to be "downstate IL" while across the street from Wisconsin.

Most of Illinois is endless fields of corn. Without Chicago, Illinois would be Iowa without the urban pulse of Des Moines. Downstate is not only dominated by Chicago and Chicagoland, downstate IL doesn't offer up much in the first place. The contrast between the two would make for a very strong desire to separate.

The way I see it, I see Wisconsin having advantages over Illinois: it gets its capital city in Madison, not in Springfield. It gets its flagship university in Madison, not Champaign/Urbana. It gets its major city in Milwaukee, a place more in common with Chicagoland than any place in Illinois.

That Lake Michigan that we love so much is what put us in the mess we're in. If it weren't for the new state of Illinois wanting Great Lakes access, requiring what would have been Chicago, WI, becoming Chicago, IL, which it was designed to be.

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by edsg25

That Lake Michigan that we love so much is what put us in the mess we're in. If it weren't for the new state of Illinois wanting Great Lakes access, requiring what would have been Chicago, WI, becoming Chicago, IL, which it was designed to be.

I don't think it was just access to the Great Lakes that gave Chicago an advantage; heck, there are hundreds of miles of coastline in Michigan and Wisconsin, if that was the only factor. What made Chicago "special" was the Chicago Portage, later becoming the I&M Canal, and then the Sanitary and Ship Canal, which allowed access from the Great Lakes to the Illinois River, to the Mississippi River down to New Orleans. And with the addition of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the eastern seaboard. My history isn't the greatest, but I think that Chicago owes one heck of a lot to Marquette and Joliet (or whoever hired them) for having the foresight to map this out, correct?

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by jdiddy

The last thing we need is 2 more senators representing a handful of white people and a shihload of corn.

I don’t know how to break it to you, but prepare for 8: North Dakota plans to split into five states:

Fargo
Farther Go
Prussian Bismarck
Southern North Dakota
Tarred Sand

On the plus side, no corn. Just a sh**load of dust

[brodie734]

Originally Posted by KoNgFooCj

The weird thing about Illinois is such a high percentage of its population lives in its biggest city's metropolitan area. I feel like New York is the only other state like that. Probably because Illinois doesn't have a 2nd major city.

tbh this is not that weird as only a few states have multiple major cities and many states have none.

[IAmEverywhere]

There are major differences between the inner-ring and outer-ring suburbs of Chicago.

Culturally, the inner-ring suburbs are not that different from the city. However, the outer-ring suburbs are fundamentally different. In my opinion, their culture is more similar to other parts of the Midwest than to the city. Politically, the outer-ring suburbs may lean Democratic nowadays, but they are far from being the political monoculture which defines the city and inner-ring suburbs.

Economically, the outer-ring suburbs have their own major economic centers. They are less reliant on downtown Chicago for jobs than the inner-ring suburbs.

Interestingly, the plan being suggested here takes these differences into account. Most of the inner-ring suburbs are in Cook County, which would remain with the City of Chicago under this plan. Most of the outer-ring suburbs are in collar counties, which would be grouped with downstate Illinois under this plan.

Also, Aurora alone is within 5% of the population of Des Moines. So under this plan, the new state would in fact have a city in the same league as Des Moines.

[edsg25]

Originally Posted by Curly Q. Bobalink

I don't think it was just access to the Great Lakes that gave Chicago an advantage; heck, there are hundreds of miles of coastline in Michigan and Wisconsin, if that was the only factor. What made Chicago "special" was the Chicago Portage, later becoming the I&M Canal, and then the Sanitary and Ship Canal, which allowed access from the Great Lakes to the Illinois River, to the Mississippi River down to New Orleans. And with the addition of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the eastern seaboard. My history isn't the greatest, but I think that Chicago owes one heck of a lot to Marquette and Joliet (or whoever hired them) for having the foresight to map this out, correct?

Yep. Very well aware. There is no question that the building of the Erie Canal gave birth to the Colossus of New York. There never would be the New York we know without it and we'd probably singing "Those little town blues are melting away, Philly, P A" without it

New York needed a western terminus to the water system it created. It anointed Chicago. The location was the best. Chicago was on the west and south shores of the Great Lakes, opening it up as the best shipping point in the west.

New York created this Manhattan-Atlantic-Hudson-Mohawk-Erie Canal-Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan-Chicago marvel.

Chicago made it complete with its Chicago-Chicago River-Another Canal!!-Illinois River-Mississippi River-New Orleans-Gulf connection. New Orleans to New York inland by ship, only possible because there is a Chicago.

Marquette and Joliet deserve kudos on this. But they owe a big assist to someone else. Contrary to what others may believe, Clinton Street was not named after Hillary in honor of her spectacular 2016 campaign. The Clinton in question is Dewitt Clinton, governor of New York, who well deserved the Chicago honor. He had the foresight to realize that there was only one spot to breakthrough from the eastern seaboard through the Appalachians to reach the west. All it needed was a canal. I would think Dewitt Clinton must have been very unpopular in Boston and particularly Philadelphia.

I think one could make a pretty good argument that New York's greatness was built by the essential bounty of the Midwest.

***

(I don't know, your history sure looks damned good to me)