Iffy future; great region if it can ever recover
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1/24/2019
East Peoria is across the river from Peoria, the latter of which is the anchor of the entire "Heart of IL" region. Though the two share part of a name, they are separate cities. If you choose the right location, this can be a very quiet place to live that's close enough to what Peoria offers, but still rural enough on the outskirts to raise a family or retire. To talk about this area is really to describe the overall region, because a metro this small is more collective than most large cities I've lived in.
The Peoria metro is not bad, it's just not exciting. We have some great entertainment come through the region to the Peoria Civic Center. There's not a great deal of art, but there is actually a strong community that both creates and supports the arts like sculptor Preston Jackson. The riverfront (on either side) can be fun. While E. Peo is mostly overrun with chain restaurants right now, the other side of the river have some clever venues for food and drink. It feels like it's a town waiting for hipsters to discover it and make it over, because while it's not as quirky as Portland, it is full of potential if some young, original thinkers tire of higher cost of living areas and want to shape the region to their liking. Bloomington/Normal (45 mins away of so) has already started to do this to some degree, with small businesses popping up to appeal to that region's two Universities and two junior colleges. E. Peo. has only ICC (a community college) but Bradley is a short drive away in Peoria.
I grew up in Germantown Hills, not far from here, so this was one of the go-to places for shopping and food when I was young. It's not a bad place and has had considerable development in the way of shopping and some chain restaurants, but the future for this whole region is on increasingly shaky ground.
CAT moved their headquarters from Peoria, up to Chicago in 2017. That company has been the anchor for all of the other businesses in the whole metro area--including Peoria, East Peoria, Germantown Hills, Washington, Morton, and so on. Given that this was one of the larger employers that offered jobs with great pay and benefits for the size of the city, I expect a decline in the region will follow, which is quite sad. From the mid-90s on, automation in the building process lead to fewer and fewer jobs in the CAT plants, as robots replace humans, so it's been a slow slide for finding great blue collar jobs too. As it is as of today, we can live on one income and easily save about half of my husband's wages here and retire early.
All of that taken into account, I'm still rooting for this region. I still have family and some friends in Germantown Hills and some in the surrounding small towns. As this region of IL goes, it's a very pretty place, with rolling hills and (in many places) great river views. There are a lot of well educated, highly talented people in the P-town region, so I hope that another company or two will make their way here at some point. The tricky bit is that IL (in general) is a hot mess. Four of Illinois' last seven governors went to prison and we've not much improved it since. Because of the high taxes and shrinking jobs, the whole state's future is questionable outside of Chicago. Even so, if MI can make a comeback, perhaps this state will too.
Should you move here? Maybe. If you are offered a job and can hold the funds to move out if need be later on, go for it. The cost of living is rather low in comparison to the decent pay you can ask for with the what remains of CAT (mostly in Mossville IL now) and other remaining employers. In fact, when looking at how my husband's pay stacks up vs. other cities, Central IL is still one of the best places. Though many of the district 150 schools in Peoria proper are terrible, there are quite a few great schools in a lot of the smaller cities. The people here are very, very Midwestern: friendly for the most part, willing to help a neighbor, and so on. Illinois State University is not far away in Normal IL, so it in-state college tuition is a bargain and you can keep them at home and have them commute.
Yasue | Bloomington, IL