Tired Of Promises, A Struggling Small Town Wants Problems Solved

There's a lot of talk about reviving small towns — especially in the rural Midwest, which Donald Trump carried easily. But many such towns, like Cairo, Ill., would see steep cuts in aid if the president's budget gains traction.

At the very southernmost tip of Illinois, the pancake flat cornfields give way to the rolling, forested hills of the Delta.

Here, at the windy confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, it feels more southern than Midwest when you arrive at the old river port and factory town of Cairo, once made famous in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

But Twain might not recognize Cairo today.

"People come through Cairo and say 'wow,' " says Phillip Matthews, a pastor and community activist.

In the past three decades, his hometown lost half its population. Alexander County is not only the poorest county in Illinois; it's also one of the fastest depopulating counties in the United States.

In Cairo, weeds creep up through the cracks in the old brick streets. Whole city blocks are condemned.

"I've watched for 40 years this city decline," Matthews says, on a recent tour.

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