Will ALL small towns look like this one day? What will we do?

Everyone knows about how change to a region’s economic fortunes can have a devastating impact. We’ve seen it in places like Detroit, Cleveland, West Virginia and Kentucky. They’re talked about a lot and used as examples of former city’s that have fallen from grace. A loss of industry can wipe out big cities or small towns. It doesn’t discriminate.

There’s a place in the far southern edge of Illinois called Cairo that might be one of the most well known examples of economic decline across the whole region. Cairo is teeny little place way down where Illinois meets Missouri and Kentucky. I’d heard about how devastated this community was - how a loss of jobs and severe storms had pretty much wiped this place off the map. So I went there.

It was a bright and sunny day in late November of 2021. As we’ll see, there really isn’t much left here. Many say Cairo is a sign of the times of the future of small towns in this country that have relied on economies that no longer exist.

You could call Cairo an industrial relic. A live look at a ghost town in progress.

This exodus of small town folks is happening all over Illinois - it’s not just in Cairo. But Cairo might be the most extreme version you’ll ever see. Cairo is in Alexander County, Illinois which used to have 20,000 people, and now has 5,000 people. In fact, this county lost a higher percentage of its population than any other county in the country. Cairo proper once had 15,000 people. Today, there’s less than 2,000.

So what happened here? Well, many factors are in play as to why Cairo is the way it is. It’s located along the confluence between the Mississippi and Ohio River, so this was a very important place for shipping and travel. The river ports here are where they would stop and load supplies. There was a lot of wealth here in the 1800s, as rich merchants, bankers, and shippers and businessmen moved here to take advantage of the prime location. There were once giant mansions here where millionaires lived. Believe it or don’t - at one time in the mid 1800s, people thought Cairo should be the capital of the USA because it was so centrally located and vital for transportation and business. There was a LOT of money here.

But then in the late 1800s, railroads became the main form for transportation, so shipping by river was less important. The railroads still went through Cairo, but over time, their routes shifted away from the town.

Then, over time, And they built a series of bridges nearby which meant transportation routes could bypass Cairo completely. That meant Cairo wasn’t as important for trade. There was no reason to stop here anymore. A lot of the railroads were gone and the shipping was gone….and with that, more problems snowballed.

By the 1950s, the job losses in the area began to mount. Lots of the original shipping, railroad and ferry businesses were long gone, so people moved away. Then there were a bunch of riots in the 1900s. The black population here had grown very large, but wasn’t represented in the city government. There was a lot of racism here and a lot of black uprisings. Many black folks were lynched in public view. By the late 60s, all of the riots had destroyed many of this town’s buildings, which were never rebuilt. So even more people left. Hospitals began to close. Schools followed.

As time has gone on, this place has faced a growing number of socio-economic challenges. The people here are poor and of course, there isn’t much of a tax base to keep the place running properly. Last year, 22 kids graduated from the high school.

There hasn’t been a new private residence built in Cairo in more than 50 years. Housing projects were torn down because there wasn’t money to keep them running. The last grocery store here closed in 2015. There’s houses in the area that sell for as little as 700. Can you imagine that?

The violent crime in Cairo is four times higher than the national average, and people have a 1 in 31 chance of being the victim of an assault or rape or murder every year. Robberies and breakins are three times higher than the US average. 40% of the population here that’s left lives in poverty.

Right now, we’re watching live - another former great US city fade away one year at a time.

#illinois #moving

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