I may offer an unfair and somewhat limited view of Decatur. It has it's nicer areas of course, but overall, and especially in the music/band scenes, the utter depravity, lack of anything resembling morality on any level, and rampant use of "hard" drugs, is enough to taint/discourage anyones' view.
There also are a serious lack of jobs in the area. For some reason this place can't support any type of decent night life scene due to the undesirable elements showing up with crack/handguns/C-4 and ruining it for everyone.
It's probably not THAT bad, but per-capita (sp?), the crime rate is elevated. In the 90's, David Letterman said "if you wanna get away with a murder, move to Decatur Illinois", as then the current 9 out of 10 murders were unsolved. This has put considerable pressure on the police force, who now are more numerous than Chicago PD (per capita ,sp?).
I grew up with this guy, and I admit he was never right in the head. Recently the police were called to his house for a domestic disturbance. He was shot dead in front of his children. I never heard anymore details other than this.
Okay that's enough. Point being, I probably blow it out of proportion, but then again....