A Skeptical View of the Peoria to Macomb Expressway


Wants – Highway boosters in both Fulton County and McDonough County really want more people. This is the core meaning behind their term “economic development”. For some businesses, banking and insurance, for example, more people means more business, which means higher profits. Highway boosters would have legislators think they speak for all residents of their communities, but they really do not. In Canton, especially, a four-lane highway to Peoria would threaten the viability of many local businesses. They would face the double liability of “big box” competition outside of town and of local shoppers speeding down the “four-lane” to Peoria area malls. With current unemployment rates only slightly above five percent (11/2005), most residents of the Canton area who want to work have jobs. For these people, a ring of new suburbs around Canton would make life worse, not better. Economists know that communities that are expanding have higher per capita costs than those with stable populations. New schools, roads, sewer and water lines, and other infrastructure must be built, and paid for by taxpayers. Lines are longer, traffic congestion is worse, and established community norms are upset. Of course, someone must be employed to build new infrastructure, but it is not at all certain that those who are currently unemployed will do the work.
In Macomb, as in Canton, the only logical meaning of boosters’ drive for “economic development” ismore people. City fathers are justly proud of two new employers coming to town, but one must ask, who will work there? McDonough County is fully employed; there are no mobs of highly employable people standing around looking for work. Either local people will quit their old jobs, or new employees will come from outside the county. Some Macomb businesses may, in fact, benefit from increased population but, as in the case of Canton, they are not really speaking for all residents. It is also true that many Macomb businesses survive precisely because of the city’s isolation. Property taxes in Macomb are already quite high. A significant increase in population would drive per capita expenses for education and infrastructure even higher. The average citizen now living in Macomb would not benefit from population growth, and should not feel obligated to suffer from higher taxes in order to provide economic benefits to those now residing elsewhere.
In short, Western Illinois residents should be skeptical of business leaders’ claims that new highways will bring economic development, and should be especially skeptical of the idea that economic development, in any form, is good for everyone. Some forms of economic development are helpful to some people; some forms of economic development are harmful to many people. In many cases, “economic development” is really just economic relocation – a process of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It would be perfectly justifiable for the citizens of Canton or Macomb to spend their own money to lure jobs and taxes away from another community, but spending state or federal funds so one community can benefit by impoverishing another community is ethically questionable, to say the least. Further, it is reasonable to ask whether current residents of Canton and Macomb should be obligated to spend their own money and degrade their own lives in order to attract the new residents needed to increase profits for a small number of businesses.

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