East St. Louis

If you have enough food to eat and a roof over your head, you're better off than more than half of the residents of an Illinois place where poverty is so bad that it's nearly shut down.

I cannot say this about many topics in life, but I have become something of a moving expert. Thanks to my career, I've lived in just about every state in the country and that includes Illinois. Here are 5 cities I've learned you need to avoid like they're the plague if you decide Illinois is where you need to be.

It's one of the most historic structures in Missouri dating back more than 100 years and you shouldn't go there. Yes, it is the longest bridge in Missouri history, but don't even think of trying to drive over it.

I did a double-take the moment I saw this and I predict you will also. Did you know that there are 25 Illinois cities with a higher crime rate than Chicago? It's true and I have the numbers to prove it.

There was an unusual flight path of a US Air Force 'nuke sniffing' plane near St. Louis, Missouri Tuesday.

I am genuinely surprised. If you had told me that the most dangerous city in Illinois wasn't Chicago, I would have guessed it would have been a different place than the actual #1 most perilous place you can live in the Land of Lincoln.

St. Louis has had the reputation (deservedly so in most cases) of being known as the "murder capital" of the United States. Based on some new stats, there's a place in Illinois that rivals it with double the homicide rate.

There are sadly many small towns in the Midwest that are struggling. However, among those, there is one in Illinois that is the poorest of them all where more than 50% of the residents live in poverty.

If there is one place to take a magnet and go fishing for crazy items in a pond it is East St. Louis, check out what these magnet fishers find!

I know it sounds weird to apply emotions to inanimate objects, but this bridge just oozes sadness. It's an abandoned Missouri bridge that once was a part of the legendary Route 66.