And it’s really hard to manage decline without spiraling into a negative feedback loop. That is, when feelings of hopelessness take root, it becomes exceedingly more difficult to retain and attract people and businesses, breeding more desperation.

Perhaps that’s why our society has coined the difficult but temporary uncomfortableness that accompanies times of development “growing pains” while there’s no similar common phrase in the American vernacular to shrug off the process of shrinking or dying or rusting over.

But I still believe, as many people do, that not only is there a way of life worth saving here, but that it can, indeed, be saved.

Southern Illinois isn’t going to return to the way it was a half-century ago, and that shouldn’t be the goal. At the same time, the solution does not lie in the politics of benign neglect: in hoping the problem might simply be solved by looking the other way.

This is why I plan to make an effort to focus more reporting this year on the communities “down here.”

I want to bring light to some of the unique concerns shared by places along Illinois’ Ohio River Valley that are experiencing increasing economic stress. But I also want to dig deeper to understand the possible solutions and the barriers to achieving them.