There are other cities and towns in Illinois that could bloom if not for the strangle hold of the crooked northwest of Illinois. With a conservative new state of South Illinois with low taxes and a reduction of regulations, I wouldn’t bet against them becoming a powerhouse over time. Chicago became a powerful crossroads because of it’s access to the great lakes and railroads...those factors are diminished now due to roads and changes in our manufacturing economy. Anyway, I don’t see a “brexit” happening anytime soon unless the downstaters get so desperate and start an intrastate conflict that won’t get put out until the congress acts!
The advantage of the Great Lakes to Chicago has not been much reduced. There is a reason that the “stranglehold” exists and it did not occur arbitrarily. Cities are where the new is created because of the interplay between dynamic forces which exist only in larger cities.
Generally the commodity cycle is 1)new creation in city, 2)growth in sales within city, 3) growth outside the city 4) movement of production facilities to more rural areas as industries “mature”.
There is also the phenomenon of migration from the rural to the urban areas because of the vastly increased employment opportunities provided. Small towns and farms do not and cannot allow the Division of Labor to proceed far enough to provide sufficient types of jobs to be created to retain young people in their home areas.
In my case, there is no way that the small town in which I was raised could have provided the type of job I was able to get in Chicago. I would have been much less happy, much less productive and much poorer by staying in my home town which I loved.
Believe me though there are hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans who are just as disgusted with Michael Madigan and the Machine. But there is no denial of the ability of the politicians to obtain and grow political power. Unless that is confronted and defeated this problem will not go away.