Rural areas seek a divorce from big cities

 Wall Street Journal:

Phil Gioja loves this small city 90 miles south of Chicago with its rebounding downtown, historic homes and welcoming churches. Yet he has been tempted to join the steady exodus of friends and fellow business owners leaving for lower-tax, Republican-controlled states like Indiana and Tennessee.

“If you like where you live, but you don’t like Illinois, what do you do?” asked the 43-year-old owner of a video-production company.

One answer: Help Watseka divorce Illinois.

A burgeoning breakup movement is gaining momentum across Illinois, California and other states where vast swaths of red, rural counties are dominated by a few blue cities. More residents are pushing to break off and form new states. Or as a group called New Illinois State—which has declared itself independent from actual Illinois and last weekend passed the first draft of a new constitution—puts it: “Leave Illinois Without Moving.”

Gioja was among the 73% of voters in predominantly rural Iroquois County who on Election Day backed the idea of forming a new state with every Illinois county except Cook, home to Chicago and more than 40% of the state’s population. The nonbinding resolution also passed in six other counties, bringing the total to 33 of Illinois’s 102 counties.

“There’s a lot of people in Chicago, and I think that they make a lot of decisions that affect people downstate,” said Gioja, who doesn’t expect a New Illinois soon. “It’s just sending a message that, ‘Hey, you know, there’s people that would like to be part of the conversation, and often aren’t.’ ”
...

I live in a rural area of Texas but still use cities for shopping and health care needs.  It seems to work here and Texas cities seem to have more diversity than those in places like Illinois.  I lived in Houston for several years before moving to the country.  I thought the major drawback was the traffic which could waste several hours of the day when commuting.  I make my trips to the city during non-rush hour times when possible.

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