I grew up in the area, and it has to be one of the worst polluted places anywhere. There used to be considerable chemical manufacturing and metal works just south of East St. Louis in the village of Sauget. (There is still manufacturing there, but the nature of it has changed some.) An area of ESL, called Rush City, which looks like something out of the third world, is right in the path of the factories' emissions. And believe me, there was some bad stuff coming from the factories. One summer, something got loose and killed a lot of the trees in my neighborhood, which was several miles away from the factories.
Another problem came from toxic pollution of land and water from a waste dump in the village of Sauget, owned by the Sauget family. About thirty years ago, it was discovered that pollutants had leached into Dead Creek, which meandered from Sauget into neighboring towns. Dead Creek, dry most of the time, smoked and glowed during one hot summer, so the EPA checked it out. (There was even a report that a dog had rolled in it, and a few days later the dog's skeleton was found -- but that may be an urban legend.) Paul Sauget, the mayor of the village of Sauget, and the owner of the Sauget waste dump, called the EPA "troublemaking SOB's" and, as far as I know, the investigation and cleanup were swept under the rug until just a few years ago. (Mayor Sauget resigned in 2003 after it was discovered that he had racked up $100,000 in personal expenses on a village credit card.)
The issue of pollution aside, ESL has always been a rough town. But there was a time when it was a viable city, even within my lifetime. It has been overrun with political corruption -- one city administration after another -- as well as the usual urban pathologies of crime, gangs, drug abuse, etc. The school administration was so corrupt that the state took over the school district. There was no money to fund the city's sanitation department, so trash was not picked up for years. ESL once had considerable manufacturing and meatpacking facilities and a busy shopping district. In high school, I worked for a jeweler in ESL that had been in business 75 years-- when it closed. I haven't been back in that part of the city for a long time, but my impression is that any significant business of any kind is long gone.
I know this is late- But do you think you were harmed by the pollution?