ABSTRACT
The Peoria civil community's 1980 population of 366,000 dropped to 339,000 by 1987, but had grown to 346,000 by 1994. In 1993, for example, the Peoria civil community gained 2,600 new jobs, half in manufacturing, and unemployment dropped to 5 percent early in 1994, down from a peak of 17 percent in 1983, the year when Caterpillar, the city's largest employer, slashed its workforce by half. The great changes took place in the decade and a half after the end of World War II and again in the first decade and a half of the second postwar generation, more or less between 1975 and 1990, when economic decline destroyed the area's heavy industries. The Peoria Housing Authority manages over 2,000 public housing units of its own and has a rehabilitation program for the older ones. One part of Peoria's redevelopment involves the improvement of amenities for purposes of efficiency and beautification.
