As the
Chicago Tribune reports, the recovery Obama keeps talking about--is there a recovery?--hasn't reached Galesburg, Illinois, where the president gave a major economic speech on Tuesday.
The White House billed the speech, given at Knox College, where Obama gave his first major address as a freshman U.S. senator in 2005, as an important step in getting the country's attention refocused on the economy. The national unemployment rate is slowly ticking downward and growth has been steady but unspectacular, allowing many Americans to judge the overall state of the nation by their personal circumstances.
In Galesburg, the sense is that things are still not going well, and if the president hopes to secure his legacy as a leader responsible for a robust economic recovery, it appears there is a lot of work to do.
It's not a totally grim story downtown. A few hundred jobs have been created, and boutiques have sprouted here and there among vacant storefronts. Mike Breslin, co-owner of Breslin's Floor Covering, said the recession "really hit businesses downtown." He said store sales are still below what they were before the recession but are improving. "People in the area are willing to spend money to improve their lifestyle," he said.
Still, the town is surrounded by empty factories, a haunting reminder of the past.
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