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

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the galena area in the far NW corner of the state also has some pretty countryside thanks to the spillover of the "driftless area" from SW wisconisn.


source: https://elevation.maplogs.com/poi/6_...sa.567508.html

Beautiful! It reminds Southern Brazil, Londrina region, with those soft hills with woods near the creeks and intense farming.

I like farming landscape, specially wheat and soybeans. Corn and specially sugarcane I don't at all.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Corn and specially sugarcane I don't at all.

then don't ever drive down I-55 from chicago to st. louis.

it's literally 5 hours of this:


source: https://associationsnow.com/2019/07/...ing-with-nasa/



i'm not really joking when i say that central IL is one of the biggest cornfields on our planet.

there's not a whole lot else down that way. just corn, CORN, and more CORN!!!!!!!!!


ok, yes, they also grow a fair bit of soy beans down there too, but the scale and pervasiveness of these utterly gigantic rectangle farms stretching all the way to the horizon in all directions is more than a little monotonous.

i mean, just contrast the picture above with the one of the countryside around galena. which one do you think the typical person would rather spend a weekend exploring?

[Yuri]

Yes, it's massive and incredibly flat. Iowa is the same: if I remember correct, they produce 100 million tons of grains of a grand total of 450 million of the US and 250 million of Brazil. In the 1990's, Iowa produced more than the whole Brazil.

In Brazil the closest we have is Mato Grosso state, the new farming frontier, very flat and massive fields. Sadly, there we have Amazon forest being replaced first by pastures and only then to soybeans fields in the wealthiest regions. Landscape is prettier than IL and IA because there are still woods near the creeks.

Brazil is by far the largest sugarcane producer in the world, over half of production. And São Paulo state produces 70% of it. It's industrial farming and it's ugly. Farmers leased their lands to the mills and the countryside became a desert. In Southern Brazil, things are much better: agriculture is very intense, but it's carried by owners themselves. And the landscape, with soft hills, some woods is very pleasant.

[eschaton]

Talking about state capitals in dumb places:

Alaska: Why Juneau remained the capital rather than Anchorage has always mystified me. It's a nice little city it's true, but it's not even centrally located. State legislators have to fly there because there's no direct roads from the rest of Alaska. I don't even think you can drive in from Canada due to the mountains in the way.

Kansas: Topeka is the capita, and not even centrally located (Salina would have been better. It's crazy since it's less than 30 miles from Lawrence, which is the major college town in the state.

Nevada: Carson City only has around 60,000 people. Even if they didn't want to relocate the capital to Las Vegas, Reno is literally right down the road.

Maryland: Does anyone outside of the state remember Annapolis is the capital?

Florida: Tallahassee is a location for the state capital that made sense back in the 19th century, when only the panhandle was really settled and central/south Florida was all swamp. In the modern era, it makes no sense. The capital should be somewhere around Orlando.

South Dakota: Look, Pierre is in the dead center of the state, but it's a city of 14,000 which anchors a micropolitan area of 21,000. Just move it to Sioux Falls and be done with it.

Maine: Augusta is the tenth-largest city in the state, and it's not even geographically centrally located. Either pick somewhere further north like Bangor (for a more central geography) or somewhere in/around the population center of Portland.

Kentucky: Why is Frankfort the capital? It's not centrally located, and not a major city. Lexington would be far, far better of a choice.

[MolsonExport]

Why is Frankfort not spelled Frankfurt?

Ahh, wikipedia knows.

The town of Frankfort likely received its name from an event that took place in the 1780s. Native Americans attacked a group of early European colonists from Bryan Station, who were on their way to make salt at Mann's Lick in Jefferson County. Pioneer Stephen Frank was killed at the Kentucky River and the settlers thereafter called the crossing "Frank's Ford". This name was later elided to Frankfort.

So Frankfort and Frankfurt have no link in terms of naming.

[Chisouthside]

Forgottonia Illinois seems kinda mysterious. Def want to take a trip down there soon.

[Steely Dan]

^ Or how about IL's original state capital , Kaskaskia, which is now located WEST of the Mississippi River.

It's almost at ghost town status these days with a population of 21. It once had over 7,000 people way back in the early 19th century when it served as the territorial/state capital.

Most of the town was destroyed in a devastating flood in 1881 that also resulted in the Mississippi carving out a new channel for itself which is why the town now lies west of the big river.

It's always been a place that has intrigued me. Long ago it seemed to have so much promise to the first explorers and settlers, and now it's almost entirely gone.

[MolsonExport]

nobody would mistake Galena for Cairo


vanlifewanderer


will.illinois.edu

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Talking about state capitals in dumb places:

Alaska: Why Juneau remained the capital rather than Anchorage has always mystified me. It's a nice little city it's true, but it's not even centrally located. State legislators have to fly there because there's no direct roads from the rest of Alaska. I don't even think you can drive in from Canada due to the mountains in the way.

Kansas: Topeka is the capita, and not even centrally located (Salina would have been better. It's crazy since it's less than 30 miles from Lawrence, which is the major college town in the state.

Nevada: Carson City only has around 60,000 people. Even if they didn't want to relocate the capital to Las Vegas, Reno is literally right down the road.

Maryland: Does anyone outside of the state remember Annapolis is the capital?

Florida: Tallahassee is a location for the state capital that made sense back in the 19th century, when only the panhandle was really settled and central/south Florida was all swamp. In the modern era, it makes no sense. The capital should be somewhere around Orlando.

South Dakota: Look, Pierre is in the dead center of the state, but it's a city of 14,000 which anchors a micropolitan area of 21,000. Just move it to Sioux Falls and be done with it.

Maine: Augusta is the tenth-largest city in the state, and it's not even geographically centrally located. Either pick somewhere further north like Bangor (for a more central geography) or somewhere in/around the population center of Portland.

Kentucky: Why is Frankfort the capital? It's not centrally located, and not a major city. Lexington would be far, far better of a choice.

Many of these capitals remain so simply for historical reasons, and the gravity created by having a state's bureaucracy settled in one place for so long would make moving it a logistical and political nightmare. These places made sense back when they were established as capitals and moving the seat of government now would be almost impossible. Except for maybe Juneau, which is home to what is possibly the least inspiring legislative building in North America.

Frankfurt made sense being neutral ground between the population centers of Kentucky. A population density map of the state still reflects this.

Annapolis was an established administrative center before Baltimore was even founded.

Carson City was the population center of Nevada during the silver and gold rushes. It even had a US Mint at one time.

Pierre is easily the most desolate capital city in the US. There's hardly anything beyond state government, a cattle auction, and a Wal-Mart. Even the interstate avoids it. It has to be rough attracting employees there since Sioux Falls and Rapid City are actually kind of nice. Bismarck, ND is in the same geographic condition but manages to have some life to it as ND invested in transportation infrastructure and a couple of universities.

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ Or how about IL's original state capital , Kaskaskia, which is now located WEST of the Mississippi River.

It's almost at ghost town status these days with a population of 21. It once had over 7,000 people way back in the early 19th century when it served as the territorial/state capital.

Most of the town was destroyed in a devastating flood in 1881 that also resulted in the Mississippi carving out a new channel for itself which is why the town now lies west of the big river.

It's always been a place that has intrigued me. Long ago it seemed to have so much promise to the first explorers and settlers, and now it's almost entirely gone.

Oh wow , there isnt even google street view there and its super isolated. thank you for pointing it out.

[Steely Dan]

^ at least someone posted this cool drone-view of the town (or what's left of it) to gmaps:

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9215...!7i4096!8i2048


note to future civilizations: don't build your state capital in the literal fucking middle of the flood plain of the biggest damn river on the continent.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

Pierre is easily the most desolate capital city in the US. There's hardly anything beyond state government, a cattle auction, and a Wal-Mart. Even the interstate avoids it. It has to be rough attracting employees there since Sioux Falls and Rapid City are actually kind of nice. Bismarck, ND is in the same geographic condition but manages to have some life to it as ND invested in transportation infrastructure and a couple of universities.

It's very weird I-90 avoided Pierre. Even if it had just gone straight east from Rapid City without any jog further north, it would have only been around 20 miles south of Pierre.

I guess the biggest defense of the location these days is South Dakota has two equidistant population centers (around Sioux Falls and around Rapid City) and a move to either one would piss off the other half of the state (there's nothing to speak of besides Pierre in the middle third of SD)

[ChiSoxRox]

Another capital/university puzzler is Missouri.

Jefferson City was chosen as the capital in steamboat days being right on the midpoint of the state's chunk of Missouri River. Then the state university went in Columbia -- which is a grand total of 32 miles away. Now Columbia is a thriving mini-metro, while Jeff City stagnates. Indeed, how many of us remembered the capital of Missouri before reading this?

As for Alaska, the state voted to move the capital to Willow, just north of Anchorage in the 70s, but then voted down the funding to actually do it. Alaska may be the most adverse state to public spending -- and so much of the state has to fly anyways -- that Juneau is the capital in perpetuity unless the Feds drop a massive grant on us.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

which goes back to my original point: had IL consciously clustered these things in a single central IL city, the result would've likely been greater than the sum of its parts.

While you can definitely find examples of successful cities that have a state capital + flagship state university, there are also examples of smaller cities clustered in an area, with the capital and university in different towns. North Carolina probably represents the best model for this. Within the 'Triangle' you have Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Greensboro and Wisnton-Salem are also nearby. Chapel Hill has the flagship public university, Raleigh is the capital and also has NC State, Durham has Duke, etc. While none of these cities are particularly remarkable on their own, the whole region is pretty impressive, and the cities complement each other.

Consolidating the 4 smaller cities of central Illinois into one larger city could have helped their fates, but greater cooperation and a collective regional approach to selling the area ala the North Carolina triangle could have also helped.

[Steely Dan]

^ the distances in your NC example are also considerably smaller than they are for the central IL "triangle cities", which makes it MUCH easier for them to build of of each other's successes in a virtuous cycle. the IL triangle cities are far more "stand alone".



as the crow flies, center to center:

raleigh to durham: 21 miles

durham to chapel hill: 10 miles

chapel hill to raleigh: 24 miles


vs.


springfield to champaign: 78 miles

champaign to peoria: 81 miles

peoria to springfield: 61 miles



if peoria (commercial port city), springfield (state capital), and champaign (flagship university) were all as close to each other as those NC triangle cities, then yes, that could have definitely helped all of them out from a "working together"/regional perspective.

[Crawford]

And I don't think there's any magical formula. Sometimes it's dumb luck. Sometimes clustering anchors doesn't work.

Lansing is the capital of a major state + host to one of the largest, most important public universities in the U.S. It's a pretty slow growth metro, barely above stagnant. Dirt cheap RE.

[goat314]

Honestly, I think Illinois would benefit from making the Metro East (St. Louis area) stronger. That area of the state has a large airport with capacity, an Air Force base, a Unesco World Heritage site (Cahokia mounds), major logistics infrastructure, light rail access to a major city, plenty of developable land etc. It's really a shame that the area is stagnant at best and don't get me started on East St. Louis.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And I don't think there's any magical formula. Sometimes it's dumb luck. Sometimes clustering anchors doesn't work.

Lansing is the capital of a major state + host to one of the largest, most important public universities in the U.S. It's a pretty slow growth metro, barely above stagnant. Dirt cheap RE.

yeah, this isn't automatic silver-bullet shit or anything like that.

just an odds increaser.


in MI's case, it seems like GR "stole" much of the thunder that would've more naturally coalesced around Lansing in a more neutral state of affairs.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by goat314

Honestly, I think Illinois would benefit from making the Metro East (St. Louis area) stronger. That area of the state has a large airport with capacity, an Air Force base, a Unesco World Heritage site (Cahokia mounds), major logistics infrastructure, light rail access to a major city, plenty of developable land etc. It's really a shame that the area is stagnant at best and don't get me started on East St. Louis.

the metro east has got to be one of the most disjointed and uncentered significant sub-regions of a major MSA in the country.

ESL's nearly 80% population drop from 1950 peak is one of the worst urban implosions in american hostory.

and when they did build a large airport there, they built it 20 miles east of the river, close to absolutely nothing and no one.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ the distances in your NC example are also considerably smaller than they are for the central IL "triangle cities", which makes it MUCH easier for them to build of of each other's successes in a virtuous cycle. the IL triangle cities are far more "stand alone".



as the crow flies:

raleigh to durham: 21 miles

durham to chapel hill: 10 miles

chapel hill to raleigh: 24 miles


vs.


springfield to champaign: 78 miles

champaign to peoria: 81 miles

peoria to springfield: 61 miles



if peoria (commercial port city), springfield (state capital), and champaign (flagship university) were all as close to each other as those NC triangle cities, then yes, that could have definitely helped all of them out from a "working together"/regional perspective.

The cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill are also contiguous now.