Would IL have benefitted by concentrating urban development in its central region?

[jmecklenborg]

California is 3X bigger than Illinois, so logic dictates that the economic impact of state government employees in a hypothetical capital in Peoria would be 1/3 that of Sacramento.

Sacramento is growing steadily, but it isn't attracting, to my knowledge, any significant private investment, despite its proximity to the Bay Area. It's a jump to assume that companies like Caterpillar would have stayed put in their respective second or third-tier towns with the benefit of a larger and more diversified economy.

Wal-Mart keeps doubling-down on Bentonville. I am curious to visit the place since it is a newer example of what used to be more common throughout the country - major companies HQ's in small cities.

[Yuri]

How strong are the exchanges between those cities and Chicago? Is there are sense of familiarity, a statehood feeling, or it's like another planet?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

It's a jump to assume that companies like Caterpillar would have stayed put in their respective second or third-tier towns with the benefit of a larger and more diversified economy.

i'm not saying that it would've been a forgone conclusion or anything.

but i do honestly believe that if caterpillar, ADM, and state farm were all HQ'ed out of a 1M+ MSA in central IL, the likelihood of their staying put would've increased.

a better airport, more diversified economy, better business climate, better culture, better TA, etc. all would've at least increased those odds.

Originally Posted by Yuri

How strong are the exchanges between those cities and Chicago? Is there are sense of familiarity, a statehood feeling, or it's like another planet?

A LOT of chicagoland kids head down to UofI and Illinois State for college (in-state tuition FTW).

beyond that, there is definitely a "different worlds" mentality not terribly dissimilar from NYC/NYS.

many people feel that chicagoland and illinois should be their own separate states.

in fact, the current GOP candidate running for IL governor is a downstate representative who once introduced legislation in the IL house to kick chicago out of the state of IL (not joking).

the highly political posturing measure obviously failed (chicagoland runs IL), but it's an example of how large the gulf is.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

A LOT of chicagoland kids head down to UofI and illinois state for college (in-state tuition FTW).

beyond that, there is definitely a "different worlds" mentality not terribly dissimilar from NYC/NYS.

many people feel that chicagoland and illinois should be their own separate states.

in fact, the current GOP candidate running for IL governor is a downstate IL house representative who once drafted legislation to kick chicago out of the state of IL (not joking).

And do many people in those cities go to Chicago often, regard it as "their big city" or it's just an alien big city as New York or Los Angeles that just happen to be nearby?

I find this NY and IL dynamics, this cultural/socioeconomics divide, quite peculiar. Down here, another big federal country, smaller cities look up to their state capital and it's their main reference, except in very specific cases (e.g. Londrina looks mostly to São Paulo, not to Curitiba).

[iheartthed]

If Caterpillar wasn't happy with Chicago, it's hard for me to see how they would've been happy in Illinois at all. Chicago has everything that Peoria was missing. They just didn't want to be in Illinois.

That said, I don't really think big, old conglomerates that dominate the economic landscape are really that healthy for local economies. A company like Caterpillar in a place like Peoria meant that the company dictated political decisions for their own benefit, without much consideration for anything else. This type of consolidation of power can actually make cities unattractive places for organic economic development.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I find this NY and IL dynamics, this cultural/socioeconomics divide, quite peculiar. Down here, another big federal country, smaller cities look up to their state capital and it's their main reference

well for starters, chicago isn't IL's state capital. that would be springfield.

but beyond those technicalities, a lot of the resentment stems from our current divisive politics of "have" urban areas and "have not" rural areas. lots of places in downstate IL are feeling left out and left behind in the 21st century, and the politicians down there use the chicago boogeyman as a convenient scapegoat to blame all of their failures on. of course, in reality chicagoland is THE economic engine of IL and the only thing keeping the state barely afloat, but it's still "other" and wicked in the eyes of many down-staters, and thus an easy wellspring from which to foment animosity.


in the specific case of the 5 cities that started this thread, you'll likely find A LOT less overall anti-chicago resentment in the cities themselves than you would out in the cornfields around them, because the politics within them are much more purple to blue-leaning than the ruby red rural areas surrounding them.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If Caterpillar wasn't happy with Chicago, it's hard for me to see how they would've been happy in Illinois at all. Chicago has everything that Peoria was missing. They just didn't want to be in Illinois.

That said, I don't really think big, old conglomerates that dominate the economic landscape are really that healthy for local economies. A company like Caterpillar in a place like Peoria meant that the company dictated political decisions for their own benefit, without much consideration for anything else. This type of consolidation of power can actually make cities unattractive places for organic economic development.

Rochester is probably a good example of big companies that dominated cities and then fell flat. It was supposed to catch up to industrial Buffalo, but now Buffalo is doing better. Downstate IL has never really been a preferred destination even for graduates of IL universities, like U of I in Champaign. It might have benefited IL if the capital and U of I were located in the same city, but probably the rest of downstate IL would still suffer. Yes, Ohio has Columbus but other industrial central cities in OH are not doing all that well, unless they are suburbs or have become exurbs of Columbus. I've heard that even Dayton is not doing that great.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That said, I don't really think big, old conglomerates that dominate the economic landscape are really that healthy for local economies. A company like Caterpillar in a place like Peoria meant that the company dictated political decisions for their own benefit, without much consideration for anything else. This type of consolidation of power can actually make cities unattractive places for organic economic development.

which is another argument in favor of the 5 cities in question being stronger together in a hypothetical combined city than they are as considerably smaller, more provincial little outposts.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

of course, in reality chicagoland is THE economic engine of IL and the only thing keeping the state barely afloat,

For sake of argument, if Chicago were in fact partitioned into its own state, the remaining 90% of Illinois could be renamed East Iowa.

How are (West) Iowa's fortunes? I've never been there but I assume that the place is doing fine despite its lack of a major city and everything that goes with it, like an international airport. State governments typically cannot run deficits so it's pretty tough for them to get into serious financial trouble.

It's just really hard to argue that people in rural areas 3~ counties away from major cities actually provide trickle-down benefits that those 10+ counties away and across state lines don't enjoy.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Yes, Ohio has Columbus but other industrial central cities in OH are not doing all that well, unless they are suburbs or have become exurbs of Columbus. I've heard that even Dayton is not doing that great.

I think Ohio State's influence on Columbus is overblown. There are many gigantic state universities all over the United States that have failed to motivate growth in their respective cities, or at least motivate growth that is attributed to those places.

I mean, go 107 miles down the road and nobody ever talks about UC, which is pushing 50,000 students. No, UC is not the broad research university that OSU is, but it's definitely a larger and more comprehensive state university than most state flagships.

Ohio State has worked tirelessly for the past 30 years to keep UC out of the Big 10 or even play it during the regular season, since that would enable UC to be considered its peer.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Yuri

And do many people in those cities go to Chicago often, regard it as "their big city" or it's just an alien big city as New York or Los Angeles that just happen to be nearby?

I find this NY and IL dynamics, this cultural/socioeconomics divide, quite peculiar. Down here, another big federal country, smaller cities look up to their state capital and it's their main reference, except in very specific cases (e.g. Londrina looks mostly to São Paulo, not to Curitiba).

Illinois was founded as a de facto gerrymander, so Chicago and the Southern part of the state have been at odds for 200 years.

The Illinois representative, Alexander Pope, thought the original proposed state was much too Southern and pro-slavery, so the border was moved to include Chicago. With the bonus of more control over river and lake trade.



Not long afterward, Southern Illinois faltered and the state nearly went bankrupt, until Chicago paid off all the state debts.

So, yes, Chicago and Downstate Illinois do not get along, have never gotten along, and are unified simply because both areas decided in 1818 that they would be good partners in case of Civil War.

Illinois founding principle in 1818, “We f$&king hate each other, and we’re a political and cultural basket case, but we hate confederacies more. This is why Congress should let us join the United States.”

Illinois would be connected to New York and New England via the Great Lakes shipping channels, providing security for the perpetuity of the Union, Pope argued to Congress, and aligning Illinois firmly with the northern states.

Even then, “there was the possibility of a civil war,” said Ken Olson, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, who has written about the Illinois border controversy.

Congress “wanted to have a water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River for shipping supplies and soldiers if needed, since the Ohio River route could become contested,” said Olson, co-author of a new book, “Managing Mississippi and Ohio River Landscapes,” that includes a chapter on the northern border.

https://thesouthern.com/news/local/s...81c3b.amp.html


https://www.lib.niu.edu/1995/iht29502.html

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well for starters, chicago isn't IL's state capital. that would be springfield.

but beyond those technicalities, a lot of the resentment stems from our current divisive politics of "have" urban areas and "have not" rural areas. lots of places in downstate IL are feeling left out and left behind in the 21st century, and the politicians down there use the chicago boogeyman as a convenient scapegoat to blame all of their failures on. of course, in reality chicagoland is THE economic engine of IL and the only thing keeping the state barely afloat, but it's still "other" and wicked in the eyes of many down-staters, and thus an easy wellspring from which to foment animosity.

in the specific case of the 5 cities that started this thread, you'll likely find A LOT less overall anti-chicago resentment in the cities themselves than you would out in the cornfields around them, because the politics within them are much more purple to blue-leaning than the ruby red rural areas surrounding them.

In Brazil state capital = state largest cities. That's true for all the 26 states. So smaller cities look to their state biggest cities.

I guess that's probably politics then. In Brazil there's not such political/cultural divide between big and small cities. Political divide is between states, but inside the state people vote similar.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

Illinois was founded as a de facto gerrymander, so Chicago and the Southern part of the state have been at odds for 200 years.

The Illinois representative, Alexander Pope, thought the original proposed state was much too Southern and pro-slavery, so the border was moved to include Chicago. With the bonus of more control over river and lake trade.

Illinois would be the Midwest's West Virginia if that happened. Wisconsin would've been a beast, though...

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

For sake of argument, if Chicago were in fact partitioned into its own state, the remaining 90% of Illinois could be renamed East Iowa.

How are (West) Iowa's fortunes? I've never been there but I assume that the place is doing fine despite its lack of a major city and everything that goes with it, like an international airport. State governments typically cannot run deficits so it's pretty tough for them to get into serious financial trouble.

It's just really hard to argue that people in rural areas 3~ counties away from major cities actually provide trickle-down benefits that those 10+ counties away and across state lines don't enjoy.

I don’t think Illinois without Chicago was ever that economically viable, and probably would have been more similar to Mississippi economically than Iowa. Just too many rust belt cities and decaying river towns.

Illinois was pretty much bankrupt through the 1830s-40s, and spent much of its early years futilely trying to make Alton into a city.

There was one very amusing episode the first time Illinois flirted with bankruptcy, where the state was debating how to restore their finances and pay off the debt using one of the 5 cities available in the entire state. (Alton, Peoria, Galena, Chicago, Quincy).

(They ended up selling canal land by Chicago to become solvent.)

Twice in its early years -in 1821 and again in 1835-the government of Illinois unwisely and disastrously entered the banking business with a stubborn refusal to comprehend the realities of finance. The new state was economically poor, trade was just beginning to develop, and in some parts of the frontier deer hides and raccoon skins still served as a medium of exchange.

[mhays]

This sounds like an advantageous change. The Midwest has more cities than it needs, and the limited in-migration has too many places to choose from. I agree about the promise of a capital + anchor university combo. A 1m metro would have decent air service. The other locations could still be county seats.

Washington state doesn't really have this. But WSU is 60 miles into the wheat fields from Spokane in Pullman. Spokane might be a lot bigger if it it had WSU. Actually WSU has significant branch operations there. Otherwise it just has Eastern Washington and Gonzaga.

[Crawford]

Albany was a Top 10 U.S. city from around the 1810 through the 1850 Census. It had a lot more going on than state capital.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

How are (West) Iowa's fortunes? I've never been there but I assume that the place is doing fine despite its lack of a major city and everything that goes with it, like an international airport.

iowa does have a mid-sized major city (des moines) with a mid-sized airport (DSM), things that central IL currently lacks.

if Peoria had been given the state capital and the flagship university to go along with its port on the Illinois River, and today had a UA of ~500K, central IL would have its own mid-sized city and airport.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

For sake of argument, if Chicago were in fact partitioned into its own state, the remaining 90% of Illinois could be renamed East Iowa.

except iowa is growing, while downstate IL is not:


2010 - 2020 population growth:

Iowa: +144,014 (+4.7%)

IL excluding chicagoland: -162,203 (−3.8%)



opposite trajectories these days.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

except iowa is growing, while downstate IL is not:


2010 - 2020 population growth:

Iowa: +144,014 (+4.7%)

IL excluding chicagoland: -162,203 (−3.8%)



opposite trajectories these days.

Per Wiki, most of Iowa's growth is Des Moines metro (100K per Wiki) and Iowa City metro, so the rest of the state is not growing and may be shrinking like downstate IL.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Albany was a Top 10 U.S. city from around the 1810 through the 1850 Census. It had a lot more going on than state capital.

Yeah, the Erie Canal made Albany into a large population center. Pretty much every large city in New York State grew to the size it did because of the Erie Canal, and they're all either located along the route of the canal or on the Hudson River.