Illinois's dying cities
Milt had Paul Green, Jim Webb, the Chicago Tribune's Illinois political editor, and Dick Simpson, professor of political science at the University of Illinois Chicago and a former Chicago alderman on his show last night.
At one point they talked about Chicago's painful but successful transition from manufacturing, to service, and now to a global economy. They said no other city in Illinois had succeeded. Either Simpson or Green called Galesburg, Decatur, Kankakee, and all the other blue collar towns in Illinois as dying cities. All they had was the pain.
This expands a little bit on Wurfwhiles post below on DuPage demographics.
As part of the global cyber economy, I'm lucky to get out of my basement much less a drive downstate or even DuPage county.
Readers are going to have to tell me if the cities really dying, and if so how it will play in our elections. Seems like it's going to take more then no new taxes to revitalize wasting cities.
PS: Last night Green also said Chicago only thrives with strong Mayors. One reason Chicago could transition it's economy. A Pericles can't run the city.
Same true for the State? So I wonder who are our Pericles in the Gov's races, and who are the anti-Pericles (those would by Tyrants I guess).
9 comments:
The influence of Pericles's funeral oration is clearly noticed in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, albeit in a much more concise form.
A major problem with a lot of Illinois cities (including Chicago) is that they are way over-zoned. Zoning laws that might have made sense in a manufacturing economy don't make sense in the future. If I were the mayor of a struggling Illinois city, the first thing that I would do would be to heavily simplify or altogether repeal zoning laws.
IL should also get rid of the corporate income tax and all the stupid corporate welfare so that business decisions are controlled by the market rather than tax considerations and so that all businesses can be treated equally.
Paul Green is that rare intellectual. He sees things and puts them into an actual historical perspective and not some Procrstean rack.
Paul read 'American Pharoh' and dismissed it for hack job it is; now that is a solid historical perspective.
American cities are dying out because the jobs around which they were built have gone to the Third World. Kankakee lost Roper; A.O.Smith; most of Armor Pharmacueticals and replaced them with the Arches, Burger King, Pay-Day Loans, and Dollar Stores. It has become a suburb of Chicago with all the traffic problems of Naperville. Sprawl Malls; Warehouse; and Mega Trucking operations have eaten up the farm lands around Manteno and Bourbonnais ( pronounced by the way - Bur- Bone-Is).
Pericles be damned folks want Mickey Ds.
what hickey says about the Kankakee area is mostly true. I guess if you are speaking proportionally, the traffic problems are similiar to Naperville. Manteno/ Bourbonnais (prounced bourbon-nay, it's french) are not even close to Naperville status yet, in either positives or negatives. People around here don't WANT Mickey Ds we just keep getting them because the short sighted people in control keep grabbing at anything or one that promises "jobs". They don't ask what kind of jobs, full or part time, with health care and other benefits. They just hear the magic word "jobs" and their eyes glaze over.
The corporate welfare dished out here in the Kankakee area is shameless. If we are going to give out corporate welfare we should at least do it only to bring in big business that are going to bring in well paying full time jobs with benefits.
If we could get rid of Corporate Whores like our Congressman Weller, who never met a free trade agreement he didn't like, (and shouldn't even be voting on due to he conflict of interest) maybe we would stand a chance at turning around the Kankakee area's and America's economy. Really what we need here, like a lot of places is affordable housing. No one wants to build affordable housing - everyone caters to the over $200,000 market. If we could get affordable housing, up the pay a bit on all these service jobs - jobs that are hard work and deserve better pay - and get them some health care and retirement benefits, this area would be doing much better. Bigger isn't always better. Just like richer isn't always better.
Well said, Kankakee! PEOPLE don't really want Mickey Ds. Mickey Ds has global poistioning satalite capabities and THEY tell you You're Lovin'IT!
I lived fourteen great years in Kankakee and spent time in the Bournonais hoosgowl for refusing the BOORBONAY - Townies still call it BurBonis; and witnssed the decline of that great town.
Well said indeed!
Bloomington has insurance.
Peoria has Caterpillar and hospitals.
Carbondale, Champaign, DeKalb, Charleston, Macomb and others have higher education.
Doesn't Decatur have ADM?
There are other things.
Granted, there is lots of change, yet I do not think "dying cities" is exactly the situation in IL.
The Voice of Kankakee has spoken:
If Kankakee can get affordable housing, then "this area will be doing so much better".
Do you really think that just a bit more Socialism would finally allow Kankakee to turn the corner and become the economic powerhouse it was meant to be? Just one more subsidy; Just one more public works project; Just one more tariff and Kankakee will be replacing Silicon Valley as they engine of economic growth.
Maybe if we let people live where they want to live they would make rational decsions as to whether they thought Kankakee was an economic Nirvana. Who knows, maybe it might have attractively priced real estate?
JBP
Kankakee Voice is as hateful a "voice" as there is. Not representative of those in the Kankakee area.Attack after attack on Congressman Weller with no real plan of her own. John hit it on the head. Socialism, something due to me because someone else has it, is prevelant in KV's world but not to those in Kankakee who want some economic stimulus from leadership in IL not pretty hair and fast talk.
Geez, under Ryan the Kankakee area got $$$$ dumped all around from his "homer" influence. Did it make a difference?
KV mentions affordable housing as a possible economic stimulus. "New" affordable housing is not desired by municipalities because it invariably uses more services (and places more burdens on school districts) vs. the returns from property taxes, than those $200k homes do. Nevertheless, there is a need for mixed-income development to house those at the economic level who can't afford those $200k homes. There's plenty of "old stock" housing that would be much cheaper to remodel than a '60's style urban renewal bulldozing and rebuilding, or new greenfield development (which some refer to as "sprawl"). But, let's face it, a remodeled old home is often not as sexy as a new house.
LOL!!! "Attack after attack on Congressman Weller with no real plan of my own"!!!???? Excuse me, I'm not the elected Rep. of the 11th CD nor do I get Weller's paycheck. It's not MY JOB to have a plan of my own, (although if you read my blogs I do have many of my own or feature great plans of other's, there's no lack of plans around.) Also that phrase is really getting tired. Republicans seem to shoot it out whenever their plans are criticized, and whether it's true or not.
Did I say anything about socialism? I used the words "affordable housing" something that's needed all over, not just Kankakee. But it would help the area if people had houses to buy or apartments to rent that were in the price range of the incomes coming from most of the jobs in the area, service jobs. And it would help the Kankakee area if those service jobs paid better, were full time and had benefits. I'm not talking silicon valley - keep your silicon valley, in it's own way it's as bad as any blighted neighborhood. I'm talking comfortable middle class. Nothing fancy, just good old American middle class. Anybody remember that?
I think most people looking for affordable housing in the Kankakee area are not as concerned with sexy, they just want a decent place to live that they can afford on the jobs available in the area.
And by the way, telling the ugly truth about someone, like I do about "Wrong Way" Weller is not "hate filled" it's just stating the facts. Weller came into office in the sweep to clean up the House of dirty democrats in 94 (Contract with America, you recall?) Weller has gotten lost and taken lots of Wrong turns. He's a corporate whore who will most likely be caught up in the Abramoff scandal. But his worst mistake was marrying into a Guatemalan organized crime family, his wife is nothing more than a common FRG thug. His conflict of interest by still remaining on the House International Relations Committee could only be happening because of our government being held hostage by the DeLay crowd, and the House Ethics Committee in essence shut down for over a year now.
Finally, I don't believe in giving away other's assets. I do believe in neighbors helping neighbors, and in compassion, and in treating other people as I would want to be treated. I recognize the reality that not all people are able to take care of themselves, we are not all born with the same abilities and potential. Of those who have more, more is expected.
I also don't find anything particularly noble in the stories some people like to tell about how hard and long they worked and suffered to get where they are and what they have. That's their choice, don't inflict it on the rest of us who would choose a more humane and sane style of working and living. Some of us are happy with a simpler life, with a bit less and don't begrude all the good our tax dollars do. (I do mind one hell of a lot when politicians like Weller give our tax dollars, or give tax breaks to billion dollar profit making Oil companies, or when the powers that be in kanakee give tax breaks to big businesses that come in, give us the low paying jobs, make lots of money and then bitch and moan and even leave town when they don't get welfare anymore from city governments.)
Saying we won't get business to come in if we don't give the business special perks is disengenious. If it's in the businesses' best interest to be in our area, they'll locate here with or without perks. And life abhors a vaccum, if big business doesn't come in to fill the needs of the community, individuals will step up and start their own businesses. I would prefer the local butcher and baker to big box stores that are impersonal and have no competent help. I would rather pay a few pennies more to people who live and own businesses in the community than spend my money in some store that gets the corporate welfare, doesn't not give a damn about it's employees and buys goods made cheap from the slave work of children or othe oppressed people taken advantage of in other countries. Our race to the bottom that we call "free trade". Most of us would prefer fair trade and keep our food supply and manufacturing right here in the U.S. THAT is homeland security.
I don't consider Kankakee a dying city. But I do think government and other area players need to think in less grandiose terms, bigger and richer is not always better. We can have a thriving diverse community if we work with what we have and try to be fair and help out all areas of town and people of all economic levels.
Keeping our eyes constantly on the have mores, and the rich give us tunnel vision and blinds us to possiblities already in our community waiting to be tapped, or helped out to become a contributing member of the community.
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