for one sir i am not a Mr. i am a Ms. And i have recently been to rockford and i have seen those streets. I don’t see any improvement whatsoever.. and my sister is still on those streets. apparently someone is trying to do a good job in covering it up. I know people who know the people who own those so called lingerie shops on broadway that do nothing but solicit prostitution and drugs. My mother lives in the old Foust LandMark and she tells me about this stuff all the time.. And your right i did choose to go to the south and i am glad i did because my children grew up well and drug free and not like some of the friends of mine who chose to stay in rockford and have either lost their children to drugs, prison or death.. So don’t tell me things have changed for the better because i have seen my old neighborhood and it is slum now…

No easy solutions. Embrace the idea of concealed carry. It is a good idea and the evidence supports it. But I am not optimistic that the state of Illinois will pass it anytime soon.

Tear down places like Fairgrounds, Concord and Auburn Manor, which are breeding grounds for crime. Codemn Section 8 public housing. Make the residents move someplace else, preferably back to Chicago or far away.

During my time in Rockford I prided myself in taking advantage of what Rockford had to offer. From museums, parks, local restaurants, events, lectures and film series at RVC and Rockford College, you name it, I did it. All the while having to listen to friends say, “If only Rockford had this”, or “if they’d only do that”. And believe me I did my share of complaining too. I don’t know who we thought “they” were.

Yet at many of the events I attended where I thought surely those who complained the loudest would be in attendance, weren’t. I’d go Storefront Cinema and be one of only a few people there. I’d go down to Davis Park on a Sunday afternoon in the summer and the place would be deserted. It’s a great place to go for a picnic and throw a Frisbee or let your dog run around but, there was never anyone there. I’d walk over to the art museum on a Saturday afternoon and be one of two people there. I’d go to a foreign film series at RVC and sit with five geezers. For me that was really discouraging. It seemed like many people liked to complain but were unwilling to support the on-going small cultural events that are a vital part of a city.

Events like the Wing Ding and On The Waterfront are well attended and that’s great but, events like that are here and then gone. That’s not sustained culture. And for me chain restaurants out on East State or north of there now are not culture. Yet places like that thrive. That told me something about who lived in Rockford.

The bottom line for me was that I didn’t feel a part of my community, at least from a cultural standpoint. I just felt apart. I found myself traveling to Madison, Milwaukee and occasionally Chicago to find my culture. The vibe I got in places like Madison was like, wow, I feel a real sense of community here. Like the people here know they’re a part of something great. I felt good there but, at the end of the day I’d have to drive back to Rockford’s deserted downtown. I really got tired of having to drive elsewhere for the culture I needed. So I left.

Rockford is what Rockford is, an okay little mid-western town not unlike hundreds of towns its size all across the country. The fact that Rockford is so close to Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee probably doesn’t work in its favor. Rockford seems to look to these other towns and wants to be more like them. Because of that close proximity it has an identity crisis.

Rockford is not a bad place. Not a bad place to raise a family. Not a bad place to have fun. It is what it is and there just isn’t enough of the right kind of people to make it much more. It isn’t very progressive. The weird thing for me is that Rockford seemed like a much cooler place years ago. Back when the downtown was a thriving place or when Charlotte’s Web was in its heyday. But that’s another story.

All the best,

Scott Phillips