| Bensenville, Illinois - Skid RowBensenville, Illinois won a prize a few years ago. Forbes.com had a story about Bensenville. “America;s Fastest Dying Towns” by Matt Woolsey. It was published by Forbes on December 9, 2008. “Ten spots where jobs are vanishing, incomes are dropping and poverty levels are rising.
In Depth: America's Fastest-Dying Towns If you've ever flown into Chicago, you've seen Bensenville. A village to the south of O'Hare Airport, it was part of Chicago's post-World War II growth boom, providing a multitude of manufacturing and warehousing jobs to the country's first wave of suburbanites.
As late as 2000, times were pretty good. Poverty was a minuscule 6.5%, incomes were growing and folks were relocating to Bensenville from outside the state at a steady rate.
But Bensenville's fortunes have since changed. Incomes have dropped by 11.4% (without accounting for inflation), poverty has more than doubled and domestic in-migration has ground to a halt.
"Much of the low-level manufacturing work has gone overseas, or the jobs have shifted to the outer edges of the metro area," says Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. "What's happening is, you have industrial jobs replaced by service jobs."
In Depth: America's Fastest-Dying Towns
Bensenville leads our list of America's dying small towns. Other manufacturing hubs hit hard by declines in the auto industry appear on the list.”
(Forbes.com, by Matt Woolsey, December 9, 2008) I often refer to Bensenville as the barrio - the Mexican ghetto. And Bensenville definitely is the barrio. But lately, Bensenville may earn another designation - Skid Row.In Bensenville you see more and more panhandlers, bums and homeless people in the downtown Bensenville area. I use the term “downtown” jokingly, since Bensenville really has no “downtown.” Any doubts? Compare Bensenville to Elmhurst, Des Plaines or any other city around here. The last two times I stopped at Edmar’s in Bensenville, I was approached by Bensenville panhandlers asking if I could spare some change. There were Bensenville homeless people eating out of cans in the Bensenville Edmar’s parking lot. I’ve seen Bensenville homeless people eating on the grass in front of the Bensenville Walgreen’s. Well take your choice. What do you think best describes Bensenville, Illinois.- The number one dying town;
- The barrio;
- Skid Row;
- All of the above.
I pick number four. Now, who said Bensenville didn’t have something to be proud of? |
 "bensenville-06/12/1986 - A Marine military policeman searches an illegal alien that was found on a train. Marine military police, Santa Fe Railroad Police and Federal Border Patrol agents work together to apprehend aliens entering the US through the camp.")
