As an immigrant, I’ve always have said that outside Metro Chicagoland (& possibly Champaign), the leading economic export of every Illinois county is high school graduates. “those fields a̶t̶t̶r̶a̶c̶t̶ hire relatively few Blacks and Latinos, at least so far.” – MrJM “As an immigrant, I’ve always have said that outside Metro Chicagoland (& possibly Champaign), the leading economic export of every Illinois county is high school graduates.” Anecdotally, I would say the big cities along the I-74 Corridor (Champaign-Urbana, but also Bloomington-Normal, Peoria, and Quad Cities) and *maybe* Metro-East are the only level/slightly growing areas outside of Chicagoland.