Why Almost Nobody Lives in Southern Illinois Today

Bring your next big idea to life and build something new, like my mapping tool, with our sponsor Lovable: https://lovable.link/Ikf4Np4 -- 🌐 Help build my new Geography Community at https://www.thebight.co/ -- The Land That Proves Washington Was A Mistake:    • The Land That Proves Washington Was A Mistake   -- Within Illinois, almost the entire population and economy is crammed into the flat top-right corner around Chicago, while the deep south is rugged, wild, and virtually empty. But what if I told you it used to be the exact opposite? Two hundred years ago, Southern Illinois was the booming center of the American frontier at the confluence of the two most important rivers in the country, while Chicago was just a miserable, muddy swamp. So how did the story completely flip around? Why did Chicago boom while Cairo sank into obscurity? -- Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 0:32 - The Tale of Two Landscapes 6:43 - The Shifting Center of Gravity 11:31 - The Shadow of Giants -- 🌳 Find me: https://linktr.ee/geoffgibson 🗺️ Map store: https://mapsbygeoff.com -- Stock footage and music acquired from www.envato.com, www.storyblocks.com and videvo.net. If you think there's been an error in using a video clip, please contact me. This has been a production of Sound Bight Media (soundbight.com)