Once a strategically important city at the juncture of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Cairo, Illinois, is in terminal decline after decades of racial turbulence.
Tag: Illinois
Spurred on by an impromptu excursion to photograph a collapsed bridge in western Kentucky, I decided to visit a part of the state that I had not yet fully explored. From Owensboro to Paducah, from the isolated Land Between the Lakes to dense streetscapes, I toured the back roads in hopes of finding something new to write about and to photograph. Then, I came across Cairo, Illinois. What the hell happened here?
After a recent drive through Cairo, Illinois (article forthcoming), and seeing the effects of decades of racial segregation and violence, and then economic decline and population loss, I wondered what other major and minor cities in the United States has experienced such steep and dramatic losses? Besides Cairo, Detroit and Wheeling, I asked my Facebook readers of other examples.