The Forgotten City of Cahokia Poses a Warning to Chicago

AMAC Exclusive – By Herald Boas

Cahokia was the name of the largest city of pre-Colombian civilization in what is now the United States and Canada, located across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Although Cahokia and modern Chicago are very different in so many ways, it might be useful for Chicagoans to recall the now-forgotten metropolis of so many years ago.

They would learn an important lesson: cities can die.

At its peak from 1150 to 1300 A.D., Cahokia was home to between 10,000 and 20,000 persons of the indigenous Mississippian culture. Its real name is unknown because it did not have a written language, but it is called Cahokia after the tribe that lived in the area in the 18th century.

In its peak period, Cahokia was a carefully laid out city covering six square miles of plazas, cultivated fields, sophisticated buildings, and 200 mounds. It might have even spanned a larger area than contemporary London or Paris. Its tallest and primary mound was 10-stories high and probably had an acropolis or temple on it. That mound was, if you will, the first American skyscraper.

The residents grew maize, beans, and squash, and archeologists have found evidence of sophisticated toolmaking and engineering. The earliest settlement on the site is believed to have been about 600 A.D., but as noted, its main growth occurred about 500 years later when Cahokia became the principal city of the Mississippian people and their trading center. Archeologists have found goods and artifacts in Cahokia from throughout central North America, including in what is now Minnesota, Texas, and the Great Lakes region.

Archeologists have also found evidence of ritual human sacrifice as part of the life and culture of Cahokia.

Some evidence of flooding has been found, but the real cause of the almost sudden abandonment of Cahokia is unknown. Early theories of environmental disaster have now been disproved, and it is currently believed that political and economic reasons caused Cahokia to be abandoned about 1400 A.D. after a period of great flourishing which lasted 150 years.

By contrast, the city of Chicago has been the most important midwestern city of the United States over the last 150 years—also a major transportation and trade hub filled with modern-day skyscrapers. If Chicago continues its rapid decline, and potentially is even partially abandoned, as some might now predict,

the cause would not be a mystery.

The once teeming and great Second City suddenly seems caught in a pattern of flight, lawlessness, violence and, self-destruction. Prior to its recent mayoral election, the city had seen its population drop, a steep rise in violent crime, and steady abandonment of its fabled downtown retail and office culture.

In 1950, Chicago’s population was 3.6 million. Today, it is about one million less. It is no longer the second largest U.S. city. Many of those who have left now live in the sprawling Chicago suburbs which reach north to the Wisconsin border, and east to the Indiana border.

Rising taxes, growing crime rates, and lack of adequate public security have caused many major corporations and stores to leave the center city.

These conditions led to the defeat of Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot in the recent city elections. She did not even make the subsequent run-off election, which pitted a moderate Democrat favoring restoring order in the face of growing urban chaos against a progressive Democrat who had previously advocated defunding the police and was backed by many of the unions. The latter won a close run-off.

Supporters of the new mayor have now called for the defunding of police, a big increases in sales and income taxes, and employee fees for employers, as well as welcoming and subsidizing more and more undocumented immigrants. 

Should that program be enacted, the flight of residents, retail stores, corporations, and office employees, already a serious problem for the city’s economic and fiscal health, would likely only accelerate exponentially.

Chicago is not only a very big city. It has had a remarkable architectural impact, and a huge literary, theatrical and musical influence on American life. Its fascinating ethnic neighborhoods, innovative restaurants, professional sports teams, retail and wholesale business firms, and convention facilities have drawn visitors from all over the world year-round. Each of these becomes untenable in an environment of chronic crime, violence, high taxes, and declining public safety.

Chicago is not alone with these problems. San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Baltimore, and Philadelphia are some of the other notable major cities facing crime, decreasing populations, and public security crises. Recently, however, in elections in New York City and Philadelphia, local voters chose comparatively moderate mayoral candidates, and in other cities more radical candidates for public office are being rejected.

But Chicago chose a new mayor who seems intent on intensifying the causes of its problems.

Some say that the state and federal government would bail out cities like Chicago if they become bankrupt. But with nationwide economic uncertainty and continued inflation, that seems like a very unlikely solution that would be both fiscally and politically disastrous.

Chicago faces an uncertain future of its own making.