Little Pink Houses

 Went down an interesting rabbit hole of rural, distressed Illinois towns on the YouTube. The host has been all over the country videoing similar locales, so he wasn't picking on my people. I've been here and there in the country myself and wasn't too surprised by his findings. Of all the curiosity one might have about why anyone lives where they do, why people live in small towns dying a long, slow death is a tough call. The host didn't get too far into that. Much of his journey is filmed from his car as there really isn't much to explore. Aside from a lot of rundown houses, it was a couple episodes in before he even found anyone out on the street. It was rather depressing. He gives stats on the town and a bit of history, if there is any. Pearl, Il. a bit north of St. Louis (if you care where that boring city is) was so named because they harvested pearls from river mollusks for buttons on shirts, early in the 20th century. At some point the demand for that declined and so did the town. Most towns so far have been 100% white or damn near it. He gives housing costs, average income and poverty and crime stats along with population figures for the last 100 years. Again, he's not judging or exploiting the people of these towns, just showing the rest of us what rural life looks like today. Where I'm at now, I don't have to travel far to see it.

I've always liked small towns. I grew up in a western suburb of Chicago of about 16,000 residents, surrounded by suburbs of similar demographics. In the 60's and 70's, I'd say my town had that small town feel to it, though nothing like my current town where my cousins grew up, and where several still live. As kids, when we'd visit, it was like (we joked) going to Mayberry. But not really. Not that small. Just under 8,000 folks now. Cost of living is lower than Cook County where I came from. Few if any of my old classmates could afford to live in our hometown now as it has been gentrified over the years. A gal who grew up down the street from me (I didn't know her, but I knew her sister) cracked me up when she returned for a visit and marveled at the fine homes on our old street, saying that she thought we had lived in 'the hood' back in the day. Well, we sort of had. When money comes to town, things change. It was, indeed, a good place to grow up and 'be from', but too expensive to return to. Conversely, current town- also a good place to be from- is a pretty affordable place to stay in. 

What kills a lot of these rural communities is, after employers move on and jobs go away, there is little to stay around for. People move on to greener pastures after going to college or getting better jobs elsewhere in the country. A heavy percentage of senior citizens can mean a town is on its way to dying off along with those seniors, as families find they don't want grandma's house, and no one else does either. In a lot of rural communities' houses sit and atrophy simply because no one needs them anymore. Who would you sell to, with no new blood coming to town? 

The same story plays out all over the country. What was once a great place to be from, becomes a place that no one wants to go. No one is to blame; it's just the passage of life, and damn shame that it may be, it is the way it is.