urbanSTL

DeBaliviere wrote:http://southernilnow.org/

Gag me. I have a ton of friends in that Facebook group. They basically just joined it because of the name of the group, I assume. No one has actually thought out the implications of dividing Illinois in 2. The entire "state" would have a population of what, 150k? Cook County alone has over 5 million and an average salary per job about $20,000 higher.



All this is a jab at anyone that prefers urban living. They absolutely hate that most of the population lives in the Chicago area because it's not their lifestyle choice and they aren't "good ol' boys" from the sticks. Period.

Okay, so here are the facts.



I used this map;





Assuming Madison and St. Clair would be smart enough to back WAY off of this plan, even though its in its infancy and will never happen any way, I included the following counties (their population in July 07 according to city-data.com).



Washington 14,769

Jefferson 40,168

Monroe 32,372

Wayne 16,568

Edwards 6,572

Wabash 12,165

White 14,657

Hamilton 8,245

Franklin 39,491

Perry 22,596

Randolph 32,760

Jackson 58,841

Williamson 64,541

Saline 26,102

Gallatin 6,025

Hardin 4,468

Union 18,257

Johnson 13,065

Pope 4,182

Massac 15,109

Pulaski 6,490

Alexander 8,458



For a grand total of; Total: 465,901



According to Wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U. ... population)....





"The Commonwealth of South Illinois" would be the smallest state in the US. Smaller than Montana, smaller than Wyoming, smaller than Vermont, smaller than North Dakota.



Please note that I don't think my idea of what counties they would include in "South Illinois" are too far off - they have said that the "state capitol" would be in southern Franklin County or northern Williamson county - which would be central to the counties I included.





(I added a few comments in my blog post; http://stlouisloonybin.blogspot.com/200 ... ea-is.html)

Dear lord, what an ugly thread. 2 years in the making and I just now saw it. A divided Illinois would never work. There are too many resources in central and southern Illinois that benefit the state as a whole. There are too many important jobs in Chicago that benefit the state as a whole. The state borders are fine.

The corruption only exists because I believe our state is far more accountable of our leader's actions than others. In other words, I truely believe many other states get away with far more, without the publicity of the corruption. Our state is known for its corruption, because the corrupt almost always get caught, and prosecuted. Intense politics, means intense debate. That's how this state is. You're also naive to believe the corruption is limited to Chicago alone. St. Clair, and Madison County, on the east side, as well as other counties in the state, have a history of corruption.

Our state has an obsession with hunting down corruption, with a high success rate. I'd hate to be in a state that lets corruption pass, without a drop of a pin getting to the media.

against it.

southern illinois would be left without a large metropolitan engine...except for the metro-east.

there is also the possibility that a tug-of-war would develop similar to what has happened between missouri and kansas in the kc area. left without a robust economic engine, southern illinois could potentiall begin to attempt to poach businesses from the missouri side with unsustainable subsidies without adding any overall benefit to the region and in fact reducing regional tax revenue.

edit: whoops, didnt realize that this was so old!!!