I'm just trying to be rational.
Also, I'm just a bit bitter as someone who travels back to my hometown area (the Fox Valley) often from Chicago and it's never the same thing twice. ;)
The reason people stay is that nowhere better wants them to come. And they can at least scrape some value out of the traffic between Chicago and Milwaukee, and from the far-flung commuters, and Chicagoans looking for a cheaper place to tie up their weekender sailboats during the summer.
13000 jobs would have been a real boon for the area, if they were ever real. But the Rust Belt is rusting, and states and communities are competing against one another to be the last spots of steel left, when everything else around is grimy red holes. Kenoshans will vote for anyone that promises more jobs or better jobs, no matter how transparently false the story may be. Their dads built cars, and now they're stuck cleaning the go-karts at Action Territory, or waiting tables, or commuting for an hour or more each way. So the one who tells them the most comforting lie wins.
I think it's probably the exact same story in Janesville, after the GM plant is finally closed for good, with no backsies. In another 10 years, someone will promise them a big manufacturing plant there, and the voters will fall for the exact same trick, all over again.