I grew up in southern Illinois on a farm and in a small town. I went to a rural Kentucky college where I got a Master’s Degree in Geography with an emphasis in industrial and urban planning. My wife and I have taken many vacations in the lower forty-eight states where we avoided noisy built-up areas where possible. We live in a rural subdivision where we can enjoy the relative quite.

My lifestyle and training shows how I am conflicted by the Great Lakes Basin Transportation, Inc’s plans to build a much needed railroad and highway around the Chicago bottleneck. My training tells me it will be a transformative economic boon and destroy the area’s tranquility. I can totally understand the feelings of those people living within five miles of the proposed railroad and highway because it will definitely change the area’s rural complexion. It will upset farms, pollute the air, close hundred of small roads, and change the communities nearby forever.

The “positives” of the proposal is the long term economic benefits. Manufacturing, warehousing, and residential will explode. Dying communities will grow from the boost and thousands of people will move to be nearer to the roads. Poor school districts will grow and build new schools, towns will grow, and prosperity will to some areas that are losing hope.

All of this will happen within the next three or four decades if the roads are build. I doubt if another issue will ever be as contentious as this one in this area. I don’t know how I would vote if given the chance. I am sure thousands of other people are going to have to fall off the fence, too.

Millions will be spent, thousands will protest at meetings, the social media will roar, and politicians will speak out of both sides of their mouths, but the big, big money will ultimately be the deciding factor, as always.

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