•October 24, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Much of Downstate Illinois (the vast 94-county region outside the 8 metro-Chicago counties) appears to be dying.
Recently at mid-day, I went out onto the three-block main street of my county-seat town—and there wasn’t a solitary auto on the streets of my once-lively little burg!
Mid-size cities like Peoria and Decatur have also been hurt, by the flight of flagship corporate offices to Chicagoland. Several downstate public universities have seen enrollments implode, their host communities twisting in the wind.
The population loss that Illinois suffered in recent years is almost wholly from Downstate.
Our state is one of interdependent regions. The suburbs wouldn’t exist were it not for Chicago. And Chicago wouldn’t exist absent the 19th Century synergies with Downstate (and the Midwest), which sent its corn and hogs to Chicago, and then to the East.
Today, however, metropolitan Chicago has to prop up Downstate schools, universities, parks and social services. Chicagoland sends much more in taxes to Springfield than it gets back in services. Downstate takes the rest.
We’re better than that, Downstate. We don’t want to be a drag on Illinois.
But where and how to start, if we want over time to rebuild our region?     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.