Replies

I grew up in Peoria, IL. Left in 1964.

This is actually in or near Pekin, IL. When I was there, nearly 50 years ago, Pekin was lily-white and teeny-tiny. I believe it was about 10 miles or so from Peoria, itself. From Google maps, it looks as though all the former farmland between Peoria and Pekin has been developed into malls and retail. Maybe someone can chime in to describe the area as it is at present?

Haven’t been back except for a nostalgic detour in the mid-90s. The entire place was so changed, so built up, I didn’t recognize much.

About the sprawl around Peoria, this seems to be part of the problem of the ghettoization of once peaceful cities. As big builders have bought up large tracks of land around the cities, thousands of residents move to the newer suburbs leaving the city and inner ring suburbs. The older areas are quickly filled with ghetto “yuths”.

I watched a series of tv documentaries about the exurbs and urban sprawl. The city of Cleavland was one of the places investigated. The inner city of Cleavland and the inner ring suburbs are losing population as former residents are being lured farther and farther out into the exurbs as large builders build developments of hundreds of homes at a time. This pulls people and money out to the outer rim of the exurbs while the older communities are abandoned. Of course absentee landlords eager to accept Section 8 funding will buy these homes and rent them to anyone who will pay. Since the landlords don't live in the neighborhood, they do not care about the quality of life in the community.

Conservatives have to look at the problems of urban sprawl and the too-fast growth of the exurbs. This phenomenon works for the fast money big developers but does long time harm to communities. Example: There are brand knew developments in California that have very few residents. The builders are now renting out these nice, expensive homes to Section 8 types in order to get their money back. Meanwhile there are a few families living in this development who paid top dollar for a nice home in a nice area, who are now faced with houses whose value has dropped and neighbors who would cut their throats so much as look at them. Overbuilding is something that can be destructive to communities in many ways.