March 4, 2015

By Jim Nowlan
Outside Columnist

A regular reader of this space suggested that I write a column about the changing demographics of our state and of what it means for our future.
Since my childhood half a century ago, there have been dramatic changes in who we are and where we live in Illinois.
My rural home county of Stark in central Illinois has, for example, lost population every decade since 1880, from almost 12,000 then to fewer than 6,000 today. Most of the hundreds of vibrant downstate market towns of my youth have shrunk to a bank, maybe a struggling grocery store, a Casey’s “general store,” and not much more.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.