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This is a terrific way to respond by Biss. https://twitter.com/DanielBiss/status/1407051252953985024
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Jun 21, 2021 21:18
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Yeah! House Rep Mary Miller is bringing Majorie Taylor Greene to Effingham for a fundraiser. Living in this area sucks so much. https://capitolfax.com/2021/06/22/m..._medium=twitter Edit: I remember years ago when the county Republican Party brought war criminal Allen West to a Lincoln Day fundraiser. I think that was the moment when I realized that this area is pretty drat lost. Bizarro Kanyon fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jun 22, 2021 |
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Jun 22, 2021 17:32
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I'm soooo glad I live in Marie Newman's district. I remember driving from the Chicago suburbs to Carbondale for the eclipse. It quickly went from "sorta nice burbs" to loving rural Alabama so fast. Not gonna lie, I love the fact that her office is directly across from MTG. Newman planting the trans flag in front of a homophobic / transphobic/racist bigot is nice. Also, I'm just happy we got rid of Lipinski.
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Jun 23, 2021 07:28
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One Nut Wonder posted:I'm soooo glad I live in Marie Newman's district. I remember driving from the Chicago suburbs to Carbondale for the eclipse. It quickly went from "sorta nice burbs" to loving rural Alabama so fast. Not gonna lie, I love the fact that her office is directly across from MTG. Newman planting the trans flag in front of a homophobic / transphobic/racist bigot is nice. +1 to all of this
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Jun 23, 2021 15:03
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Several southern Illinois school districts told their communities near the end of the year that they no longer had to wear masks at school. Well, ISBE had never stated that so now those districts have received a letter from ISBE saying that they are on probation and have to attend a zoom meeting to set up their plan for next year. If they cannot do that, then they will no longer be recognized and they will lose any state funding. This has lead to the normal responses (from community and school board members): - We don’t have to listen to them. - It was an executive order, not a law. - A judge said no so the order no longer exists. - We should just fund the school without the state - This is all about the state controlling us, not protecting the kids. - Guessing which school district will “cave first” to ISBE which lead to someone saying “Jasper County will because they are full of liberals” (in the 2020 election, JC voted for Trump 82-18) gently caress, it is like a race to the bottom down here.
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Jun 25, 2021 00:30
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Is there a reason Jasper has that reputation? I know little about southern Illinois for perhaps obvious reasons e: oh, reread, it was just one person so maybe a singular wacko and not a reputation. Still I liked the idea of a +75 trump area having a liberal reputation amongst surrounding counties because their cross along the highway wasn’t big enough or something Pontius Pilate fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 04:53
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Pontius Pilate posted:Is there a reason Jasper has that reputation? I know little about southern Illinois for perhaps obvious reasons No, this entire area is 75%+ conservative but anything less than 100% (and not of your tribe) is obviously an enemy or traitor.
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Jun 27, 2021 04:57
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Reading stories like that from downstate all the time it is no mystery at all why every county is bleeding population.
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Jun 27, 2021 05:06
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Southern Illinois is sketchy as hell in general. I had the misfortune of going to college in Evansville, IN which is no paradise either. Since Indiana still pretends it is in the 19th century there is no alcohol on Sundays you would have to travel to Illinois to try and get booze. Let me tell you as bad as southern Indiana is and even Western Kentucky, once you cross into Southern Illinois it is a whole other level of sketch. It doesn’t even really get much better once you get towards St. Louis. That was ten plus years ago too, I can’t imagine what it is like now.
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Jun 27, 2021 10:03
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Worse, but with liquor on Sundays.
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Jun 27, 2021 17:10
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One Nut Wonder posted:I'm soooo glad I live in Marie Newman's district. I remember driving from the Chicago suburbs to Carbondale for the eclipse. It quickly went from "sorta nice burbs" to loving rural Alabama so fast. Not gonna lie, I love the fact that her office is directly across from MTG. Newman planting the trans flag in front of a homophobic / transphobic/racist bigot is nice. I have a kid in my office who interned for Lipinski. He drinks a lot when he's not on the clock.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:58
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Djarum posted:Southern Illinois is sketchy as hell in general. I had the misfortune of going to college in Evansville, IN which is no paradise either. Since Indiana still pretends it is in the 19th century there is no alcohol on Sundays you would have to travel to Illinois to try and get booze. Let me tell you as bad as southern Indiana is and even Western Kentucky, once you cross into Southern Illinois it is a whole other level of sketch. It doesn’t even really get much better once you get towards St. Louis. That was ten plus years ago too, I can’t imagine what it is like now. I live in Evansville right now. Planning on moving back to the Chicagoland area next year. It's gotten better but the politics still suck. At least you can buy alcohol on Sunday now, even if it's only for four hours.
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Jun 28, 2021 01:06
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Actual question from someone who's never spent any real amount of time south of Normal. What would it take to 'fix' southern Illinois? By fix let's say I mean reduce poverty and reverse the population loss. I honestly have no ideas.
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Jun 28, 2021 17:46
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Open a bunch of well funded universities and/or federal research institutions
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Jun 28, 2021 17:52
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A combination of public investment in the towns themselves AND in high speed transportation to link them all between Chicago and St. Louis. Side note: I never get the fascination with linking St. Louis and Chicago. Feels like a bit of a dead end connection. How many people really are moving between the two? But if you want to build high speed rail farther, to say…Houston, you’re competing with air travel and probably not very well at that. That said, a bunch of “really important federal investment centers” along a corridor from Chicago to St. Louis would likely draw more travel from the two urban centers.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:51
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You have to bring something to the region, like renewable energy or healthcare or education. You're not going to fix southern Illinois politically speaking if you want to turn them into blue voters. I've got a longer post but phone posting is hard.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:54
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The internet getting rolled out to rural areas was supposed to be the magic education fix we're all hoping for but drat that backfired spectacularly. The real fix is maintaining a multi-generation policy towards bringing people up but good luck with that under our political system where attitudes oscillate every handful of years.
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Jun 28, 2021 19:03
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Improve the material conditions via jobs and infrastructure
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Jun 28, 2021 19:21
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Does it need to be fixed or is it a place where it made sense to live when everyone was a farmer and now a lot less people are so fewer people live in rural areas
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Jun 28, 2021 19:35
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Thwomp posted:A combination of public investment in the towns themselves AND in high speed transportation to link them all between Chicago and St. Louis. High speed rail that went Chicago-Kankakee-Champaign/Urbana-Springfield-St. Louis would probably be worth it. There's quite a bit of travel along that corridor, especially for people in the Chicago area that have state business. The real question is why would we want to try and fix up southern Illinois. Why are people leaving in the first place, and is there some reason we need to spend a bunch of money to try and draw people in? Doing massive infrastructure spending to help out a county with under 20,000 people in it is a waste of good resources. Not saying we should abandon them or anything, but these areas already get more funding from the state than what they put in for taxes. We want to spend even more there when the population centers desperately need it more?
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Jun 28, 2021 19:38
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Bird in a Blender posted:The real question is why would we want to try and fix up southern Illinois. Why are people leaving in the first place, and is there some reason we need to spend a bunch of money to try and draw people in? Doing massive infrastructure spending to help out a county with under 20,000 people in it is a waste of good resources. Not saying we should abandon them or anything, but these areas already get more funding from the state than what they put in for taxes. We want to spend even more there when the population centers desperately need it more? Yeah this
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Jun 28, 2021 19:39
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High speed rail is definitely an answer but politically impossible. Even when they tried something that made more sense a 10 years ago with putting one in between Chicago and Milwaukee it never happened because the Republican governor of Wisconsin balked at the price and the very concept of it. Its easier within just Illinois but where would it go then is the question.
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Jun 28, 2021 19:45
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DTaeKim posted:I live in Evansville right now. Planning on moving back to the Chicagoland area next year. It's gotten better but the politics still suck. At least you can buy alcohol on Sunday now, even if it's only for four hours. I haven't been there in nearly a decade and it is twenty years since college. I know it wasn't great while I was there and I hear it has gotten worse since I was last there. The problem with Evansville is it is better than the surrounding area but it is still awful and depressing. It is famously called "Where old and poor people go to die." I didn't know about the alcohol finally. That is a slight improvement. Source4Leko posted:Actual question from someone who's never spent any real amount of time south of Normal. What would it take to 'fix' southern Illinois? By fix let's say I mean reduce poverty and reverse the population loss. I honestly have no ideas. You would need massive investment via some sort of industry. A big problem with much of the rural US in general is that as manufacturing left the US it decimated these communities. You had one or two entities that were responsible for the entire economy for huge parts of areas. As they either packed up and went overseas or went under you had the economies effectively die off over night. You see this with tons of industries all over the country, for example mining towns in places like Kentucky, West Virginia or even farming communities where a variety of reasons has made that way of life nearly impossible. The problem is that it is not really possible to just turn back the clocks or get manufacturing jobs in the US again, let alone good paying ones. More and more manufacturing is automated and will only continue to be. There was a paper I read that suggested to tax robots/automation as to the level of how many people it is replacing. It is a decent idea and probably better to implement something akin to this sooner than later but it only puts a band-aid on the situation. You also have to contend with the woeful state of infrastructure in most of the country as well. The state of internet is either sad or non-existent in much of these places. The state of everything else is not up to the standards either; power, water, roads, etc. So it is impossible to attract any sort of business or industry in the first place. Now you will say "Well why doesn't the Federal Government come in and invest heavily in upgrading these areas to make them attractive?" That is easier said than done. Much of the populations are distrustful of the government and/or blame them for their problems. It is a lot easier to put the blame on for example NAFTA/Bill Clinton/"Washington" for the plant closing instead of the ownership wanting more profit/the business dying/them getting bought by another company and being made redundant/automation. You have had bad actors pushing that narrative for decades as well. So when the offers for investment come they are either turned down or squandered in some other way if not smothered in the crib outright. Again though even if this was done it is only a band-aid for the situation. We need to start having people come around to the idea that not everyone needs to work or at least not what we consider work currently. We live in a post-scarcity society where really everyone's needs could and should be met without much effort. If we moved our priorities away from the capitalistic ideas and moved to supplying the needs of the population it would solve much of these problems and more. Sadly even suggesting this has so much pushback, mainly from the forces that benefit the most from capitalism, that it will be a non-starter until everything collapses.
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Jun 28, 2021 20:04
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Badger of Basra posted:Does it need to be fixed or is it a place where it made sense to live when everyone was a farmer and now a lot less people are so fewer people live in rural areas As lovely as it might be this is the closest to what I honestly think tbh.
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Jun 28, 2021 20:07
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Source4Leko posted:Actual question from someone who's never spent any real amount of time south of Normal. What would it take to 'fix' southern Illinois? By fix let's say I mean reduce poverty and reverse the population loss. I honestly have no ideas. Why would you want to
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Jun 28, 2021 21:25
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Badger of Basra posted:Does it need to be fixed or is it a place where it made sense to live when everyone was a farmer and now a lot less people are so fewer people live in rural areas Well I think what would be optimal is to make it so those places are desirable to live in. If you can build out real high speed internet nationwide and couple that with a work from home culture the needs for one to be in or near a major population center greatly diminishes. You add in good public transportation options and the negatives of living in a rural area are almost gone. It also solves the issue of housing shortages where you have massive areas of un or under developed land coupled with the multitudes of towns that are nearly vacant. I know if I could I would have a small place in the woods preferably by a little lake without another person for acres. But the issues of employment and internet always crop up there.
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Jun 28, 2021 21:36
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Well Illinois has two things, Chicago and cornfields. Might as well try to make the cornfield parts not complete shitholes of backwards thinking. It'd be nice to have fewer screeching bigots in the mix. And while we're talking about things that will never happen, make the Chicago part not hopelessly corrupt.
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Jun 28, 2021 21:40
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Djarum posted:
loving same. I need my internet and a reliable delivery service.
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Jun 28, 2021 21:42
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xzzy posted:Well Illinois has two things, Chicago and cornfields. Might as well try to make the cornfield parts not complete shitholes of backwards thinking. It'd be nice to have fewer screeching bigots in the mix. Lol if you think Chicago is the only part of the state that is hopelessly corrupt and it isn't a downstate problem too.
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Jun 28, 2021 21:46
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Bird in a Blender posted:High speed rail that went Chicago-Kankakee-Champaign/Urbana-Springfield-St. Louis would probably be worth it. There's quite a bit of travel along that corridor, especially for people in the Chicago area that have state business. If you could find a way to cram Peoria in there too, I'm sure they'd appreciate it :P Thwomp posted:A combination of public investment in the towns themselves AND in high speed transportation to link them all between Chicago and St. Louis. My take is that the Chicago:StL linkage probably just plays well to a lot of people: you've got the baseball connection/rivalry that a lot of people probably find interesting, and a lot of communities in Central IL that would hope it would make a stop in their area so they could also have easy access to large cities on the weekend. Houston might be too far for rail to make sense, but if you looked at connecting to anything within maybe a 6-hour drive or so, it could maybe fill a niche where it is faster/easier than a car, slower/less hassle than trying to fly. Plus people like myself, who aren't big fans of flying to begin with  I wonder if connecting some of the bigger midwestern cities together (along with closing the distance between outlying suburbs and those cities) would help make the area more attractive overall. (Of course, we'd need internet and roads and all that good stuff, too) Djarum posted:I know if I could I would have a small place in the woods preferably by a little lake without another person for acres. But the issues of employment and internet always crop up there. Yeah, this would be huge. I like living in a more populated area, for sure, but part of me still wants the option to maybe get a place with at least a small amount of land and have room to just kinda do my own thing, too. (But, with internet. And easy access to large population centers, for when I was in the mood for that). I like the rural feel, but I don't want to get left behind, either.
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Jun 28, 2021 23:18
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Zarin posted:Yeah, this would be huge. I like living in a more populated area, for sure, but part of me still wants the option to maybe get a place with at least a small amount of land and have room to just kinda do my own thing, too. (But, with internet. And easy access to large population centers, for when I was in the mood for that). I enjoy living in Chicago. The ability to walk or take easily accessible public transportation to get nearly anywhere within the city is very compelling. Being able to get nearly anything at any hour as well. The perks of being able to gear nearly anywhere in the world in a matter of hours without owning a car is a novelty too. The downsides are the lack of real privacy and space. Also you are hard pressed for silence as well. There is always the safety issues as well. There are risks to both. In the city you have a higher risk of something happening just on the law of averages due to the amount of people. In the middle of nowhere if something happens there isn't going to be anyone around to help and if you can contract someone it will be some time before they can get there. But really there isn't anywhere that is perfect.
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Jun 29, 2021 00:32
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I utterly hated living in Chicago when I lived there I'm much prefer the smaller cities. But I've generally always been up the mind that hey if I want to go have fun or do something I can still just drive to Chicago and do whatever I need to do.(I guess STL now that I live in Springfield). Not everyone likes big cities. Also the cost of living is so much better to a hilarious degree
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Jun 29, 2021 00:52
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Dexo posted:I utterly hated living in Chicago when I lived there I'm much prefer the smaller cities. Yep, my smaller city is a lot more interconnected, the longer you live here the more you get to know the rest of the long-termers who also live here and its a lot more community-oriented. There are still shitheads and the transient crowd that moves to work at the local industry/universities for a few years then moves on, and its cheap as hell compared to Chicago.
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Jun 29, 2021 00:56
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Rivian has turned Bloomington/Normal into a place to be. There's a lack of housing, of all things. Some friends of mine moved recently (into a place that's having issues with the absurd 10.6" of rain we got this past weekend, but yeah.) They put their old house on the market two weeks ago for $188,000 - it's nothing special, your basic decent-sized starter house in a quiet, safe, diverse neighborhood - about 20 years old and without any major updates. Within 24 hours, they got an offer with waived inspection for 18k over asking. poo poo is crazy here.
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Jun 29, 2021 01:16
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This is a really good time to sell everywhere, prices have gone bonkers with the pandemic. Rents are wayyyyyy up too.
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Jun 29, 2021 03:26
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I live in southern Illinois (specifically Effingham area). I love this area. I love the space you get and just like many in this thread, I too want to just get some land and get away from it. It is nice that I can go to St. Louis or Champaign for more entertainment options. But I really dislike a lot of the culture down here. It seems as if the majority of people believe that there are only communities in rural areas. These are the only places where “everyone knows your name” and that some how makes it better than in urban areas. My hometown is dying a horrible economic death and they are trying to get businesses to come in. A friend works for Marion’s business office and is trying to bring in more businesses as well. Both of them seem to be trying to sell businesses on the idea that these places are the Real America and that is why you should move there. Also, like many have said, we need better infrastructure. The area is just now getting fiber internet but our cell coverage is hit and miss. I do not know if high speed rail will really help this area. I think improving roads and telecommunications is the first step. Investing in schools to save money on work trainings. Teleworking could become the future of the world of work but they need to make the area ready for that. When it comes to the culture….well, that is hosed and I only think a change in economic circumstances (and the workers found in the area) will start that shift.
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Jun 29, 2021 04:39
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Unfortunately, living in rural communities tends to breed ignorance, and that leads to all sorts of other poo poo like racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. It’s the byproduct of not having a lot of diversity in your community, although that is not the only reason. Always funny when people talk about the Real America, when not even 20% of the US lives in rural communities.
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Jun 29, 2021 11:54
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The rural communities do have an impact much larger than their percentage of population on our politics and our culture though.
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Jun 29, 2021 15:10
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xzzy posted:This is a really good time to sell everywhere, prices have gone bonkers with the pandemic. Rents are wayyyyyy up too. Don't loving remind me. Interest rates were so low that you'd basically be paying the same per month no matter how much you borrowed so a house's affordability was whatever it's tax assessment was. So you had people over-bidding (myself included) on homes, knowing that an extra 20k on the price translated to like 50 bucks a month. So we'd come in ~10k over the list and were, three different times, out bid by more then 20 additional thousand. Housing market is a mess.
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Jul 1, 2021 03:25
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xzzy posted:This is a really good time to sell everywhere, prices have gone bonkers with the pandemic. Rents are wayyyyyy up too. Yeah, but then you have to buy something else at crazy prices going up against other buyers. House down the street from me was bought for 345,000 in 2014, they just sold it for $448,000 7 years later. Previous owners told us how it was a flip and all the things that were wrong with it that they didn't' discover until they moved in as well. Feel bad for whoever bought it at that price
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Jul 3, 2021 06:22
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