When are things going to turn around for Southern Illinois? (Chicago: sale, apartment)

[steve_holt]

Originally Posted by bhj867

Name one city not connected Suburban-wise to Chicago that's not suffering. Kankakee, Champaign and anything in Chicagoland doesn't count. It's all suburban.

Maybe you could argue that Kankakee is a suburb of Chicago, but certainly not C-U.

I'd argue Bloomington isn't really suffering. We've seen better days from a tax revenue standpoint, sure, but most of our cities' budget issues are largely due to overspending locally, not by some "abandonment by the state".

[skipcromer]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

I said "most" of the jobs he mentioned are stable. In terms of the local real estate market, I would assume the STL suburbs would be more stable compared to other markets.

Teachers are also not recession proof....

[Drover]

Originally Posted by skipcromer

Realtor is recession proof?

Seriously?

More so than you might think. The real estate market got hit particularly hard in this recession because was caused in good measure by a pop of the housing bubble (really part of a broader credit bubble). Many recessions have left the housing market relatively unscathed. Real estate, by and large, is not a discretionary expense. People will always be buying and selling real estate, even if there's a recession affecting the rest of the economy. My grandmother, for instance, is a realtor in a metro area that has been losing population for about three decades. Despite that, she has done well because when those people leave town, they need someone to sell their house. It may not sell for quite as much as it would have 5 or 10 years ago, but as long as enough people are buying or selling, my grandmother does fine.

[rgb123]

Originally Posted by AJohnston_STL

Ok then....

O'Fallon
Edwardsville
Fairview Heights
Belleville
Collinsville

or can I not mention St Louis suburbia either??


Funny though, I don't know anyone who has lost their job since the economic downturn. And I mean no one...and all of the mreside in Franklin County. Moms a realtor, dad works at a VA hospital, sister works at a medical practice, other sister works as a teacher, one brother works as a teacher, one brother works at a bank. Friend works for a company that does work in coal mines. I donno, that's just 7 off the top of my head though.

I took a look at Edwardsville this weekend after my interview in St. Louis (imagine that, a job in St. Louis . I'm interested in living on the Illinois side of the river, consider my heritage, and the fact I still posess an Illinois driver's license

I thought the town looked pretty upbeat and nice, myself.

There are a few towns in Illinois I can think of that have had troubles...Peoria, Decatur, Cairo, East St. Louis.

But, certainly that does not apply to every town south of I-80.

Actually, Bloomington-Normal seems to be doing very well. (I stopped there too, for old times sake). But I did a study on that ten years ago and that is pretty much the results...some good, some bad.

It's still a beautiful state, with some of the most fertile land in the country. It will always be important and we all will have to adjust to the changes.

Personally, I was also really impressed to see St. Louis doing a bit of a makeover, which seems to have bled over to the metro-east towns to (From what I hear, and the little I saw).

[Chicagoland60426]

For one thing, there is not even one Mid-Size city in deep southern Illinois. You can't really expect a large growth of jobs when there isn't one town in Southern Illinois with over 50,000.

[Chicagoland60426]

Originally Posted by bhj867

So creative destruction is taking out the entire state south of I80 in it's wake? That makes absolutely no sense. There is basically no growth besides suburban sprawl in this direction. Even Indiana and Missouri have managed to keep their midsized cities in stagnant growth, and there is farmland All up and down those regions with larger cities involved as well. Everything in Illinois is visibly dying, meaning losing population outside Chicagoland, including the cities (Peoria, Decatur, Alton, East St. Louis). I'm not so much blaming Chicago as I'm blaming the politicians involved in stifling money and helpful programs to the rest of the state. Here's a good example: Just because Cincinnati is growing doesn't mean Cleveland and Columbus got the shaft.

Last year they wanted to decentralize a branch of IDOT and move it down here to Harrisburg from Springfield. The City of Springfield pitched a continental fit because we were taking jobs from that city and moving them down here to what in their opinion was a "Impoverished area". I'm not so much blaming Springfield, because they are hurting as well, it's just it seems there is a hierarchy of "State government support" involved here that isn't exactly fair.

Peoria is not losing population, Decatur is though. Almost all of the Mid-Size cities in Central Illinois are doing alright in population growth.

[Drover]

OK, for those who think rural depopulation is unique to downstate Illinois, this map showing population changes by county since 2000 should dispel that myth for good. Blue = population loss, and dark blue is a higher rate than light blue. If you think it's bad here, check out the Plains states from the Dakotas all the way down to west Texas. Those places are getting hammered by population loss.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK, for those who think rural depopulation is unique to downstate Illinois, this map showing population changes by county since 2000 should dispel that myth for good. Blue = population loss, and dark blue is a higher rate than light blue. If you think it's bad here, check out the Plains states from the Dakotas all the way down to west Texas. Those places are getting hammered by population loss.

This is not a surprise at all. Most of those dark blue counties in the Plains have very little to offer younger educated people. They are also quite isolated (many counties considered frontier) and feature more limited social networks.

[jcarlilesiu]

Originally Posted by bhj867

Name one city not connected Suburban-wise to Chicago that's not suffering. Kankakee, Champaign and anything in Chicagoland doesn't count. It's all suburban. And if you want to get into "Flights", let's talk about the problem of White Flight.

White flight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A problem that almost EVERY major city in the midwest and northeast has suffered since the 1950s, and Chicago has mysteriously not been effected at all. Possibly because of the unfair distribution of funds and support to a centralized location called Chicago? hmmm.

I went to SIUC, and I heard all of these complaints while living there. People from Southern Illinois want to continually blame Chicago for the problems in their region of the state.

I now live in Chicago, and I can tell you, its hogwash. There just isn't a substaintial enough population in the areas south of I-80 to simply fund the transportation systems which serve those areas. Do you really think with out Chicago, and the subsequent state taxes, that interstates:

I-74
I-39
I-57
I-55
I-72
I-70
I-64
I-24

could be funded by only the jurisdictions for which these roads run through? That is a singular example of how the Chicago income base PAYS for the majority of State services that those south of I-80 enjoy.

Southern Illinois' problems stem from nearly a singular fault. They put all of their eggs in one basket. Complete dependancy on the coal industry was the number one mistake made. When the coal was determined to be too dirty, and mines closed down, their area dried up.

How is that Chicago's fault?

One last point. How is Champaign a "suburb" of Chicago being 2.5 hours south of the loop? Kankakee is even a stretch.

[Careless]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK, for those who think rural depopulation is unique to downstate Illinois, this map showing population changes by county since 2000 should dispel that myth for good. Blue = population loss, and dark blue is a higher rate than light blue. If you think it's bad here, check out the Plains states from the Dakotas all the way down to west Texas. Those places are getting hammered by population loss.

that really makes me want to move to ND.

Originally Posted by bhj867

White flight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A problem that almost EVERY major city in the midwest and northeast has suffered since the 1950s, and Chicago has mysteriously not been effected at all. Possibly because of the unfair distribution of funds and support to a centralized location called Chicago? hmmm.

Chicago had about 2.5 million whites in 1920. These days it's about .9 million