I live in downtown Chicago but I occasionally take work in Springfield or Bloomington (which are small towns in central Illinois). The difference is night and day. Chicago is s vibrant beautiful city with beautiful people walking around at all hours of the day. The rural parts of Illinois are GHOST TOWNS. I walk around in the middle of the day in the middle of downtown and there’s literally nobody around. The food sucks. The handful of people I run into are very nice tho.
Red towns are nuts. That whole “hey there sugar” small town feeling is not true at all.
In my state, one town in particular had to beg residents to stop calling the police on tourists. Another town had their mayor do the whole “This does not represent the town” after a bunch of dudes in pick up trucks harassed businesses owned by PoC.
Another town, two years back, the drama was a big pro-gun town but the moment a brown dude with a rifle walked around, the sheriff swarmed them.
That might be true further south but that’s not true in Rural Illinois. I’m a brown dude and most people I do end up meeting are very nice. I’m a doctor and I find the patients in these towns are much nicer and more respectful than the patients I get in Chicago. But obviously there’s a long history of medicine ignoring the complaints of minorities.
I live in downtown Chicago but I occasionally take work in Springfield or Bloomington (which are small towns in central Illinois). The difference is night and day. Chicago is s vibrant beautiful city with beautiful people walking around at all hours of the day. The rural parts of Illinois are GHOST TOWNS. I walk around in the middle of the day in the middle of downtown and there’s literally nobody around. The food sucks. The handful of people I run into are very nice tho.
Red towns are nuts. That whole “hey there sugar” small town feeling is not true at all.
In my state, one town in particular had to beg residents to stop calling the police on tourists. Another town had their mayor do the whole “This does not represent the town” after a bunch of dudes in pick up trucks harassed businesses owned by PoC.
Another town, two years back, the drama was a big pro-gun town but the moment a brown dude with a rifle walked around, the sheriff swarmed them.
Red towns aren’t safe at all.
Red town people have mostly never left, they have no concept of the outside world other than what fox news tells them. They are afraid of everything.
That might be true further south but that’s not true in Rural Illinois. I’m a brown dude and most people I do end up meeting are very nice. I’m a doctor and I find the patients in these towns are much nicer and more respectful than the patients I get in Chicago. But obviously there’s a long history of medicine ignoring the complaints of minorities.