I’m not actually from Illinois (and I don’t get WGN anymore, so I don’t even get to watch Chicago’s local news anymore).
A few years ago, I proposed creating a State of Chicagoland (for lack of a better term) that would comprise Cook and Lake Counties in IL, Lake County in IN, and Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee Counties in WI. The state’s 13 electoral votes would be safely Democrat, and it would elect 2 Democrat Senators and probably have a 10-1 House delegation, but it would make the surrounding states of IN (now with 10 EVs) safely Republican and WI (now with 8 EVs) and IL (now with 12 EVs) comfortably Republican. Republicans would get 30 electoral votes to only 13 for Democrats in the area that is currently comprised by WI, IL and IN (in 2004 Kerry got 31 EVs to Bush’s 11 in the region, and Obama won all 42 EVs in 2008); and Republicans would elect 6 Senators to only 2 for the Dems (the region currently has 4 Republican and 2 Dem Senators, and until last year there were 4 Democrat and 2 Republican Senators). IL and WI would finally be free of the pervasive influence of Chicago and Milwaukee in their states.
You know we’ll never create a new state. The UP has been trying for years. 57 states is a good round number. You’re proposal is interesting. IL and WI are solid conservative states, we’re battling the cities.
What’s interesting is, the cities are losing population. We’ve all moved away. Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, et al. We all live elsewhere. I grew up in the city of Milwaukee, went to school, all of it. It’s not just white flight, I see a lot of Hispanics and Blacks living here. They don’t want to live in those crap cities either. I don’t blame them. If they’re law abiding people, more power to them.
I’ll bet you grew up in a city. Cities are not what they were 35 years ago. We ran wild in the cities without a care. When I came back from a couple years in Green Bay and a couple in Cedar Rapids, there was NO WAY I was moving back to my hometown. I now live in the exburb of West Bend.