44 Comments - Soccermom - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:11 am: Who are they? Could we call them and ask if they have any nice friends? - Chicago Cynic - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:12 am: Wow - that’s a lot of people. Well, I guess it would be an okay crowd for a small fundraiser…in my office. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:12 am: The only thing “stable” in Chicago; its population. - Norseman - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:13 am: I’m surprised with all this good publicity Chicago and Illinois is getting from it’s opinion leaders and wealthy business people. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:13 am: 82 - still less than the 90 votes needed to pass a budget. - crazybleedingheart - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:15 am: …but, but, during the election Rahm PROMISED that his United Van Lines Rental Trucks To Naperville Talking Point About Growth was totally reliable! http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2015/02/02/fib-checking-rahm-in-the-mayoral-debates - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:16 am: “We’re jealous. Signed, The 67 members of the GOP GA” - Formerly Known As... - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:21 am: Chicago is one of the most immigrant friendly cities in America, including proud status as a sanctuary city. If immigrants really are ==going to different parts of the country== than Chicago now, those numbers will only get worse. - Juvenal - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:30 am: Measure nothing is better than measuring the wrong thing, because what gets measured matters to the exclusion of everything else. - anon - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:32 am: But, but, but people aren’t leaving Chicago and the state. They are flocking here, so say many of the liberals……….. - SAP - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:32 am: According to the Census Bureau, Illinois lost 9,972 residents from 2013 to 2014, so Chicago did comparatively well. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17000.html - Bogey Golfer - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:38 am: The 20 year-olds had to move back to live with their parents in the ‘burbs. - Wordslinger - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:41 am: Can’t say I was expecting any overall growth at all in any large Midwestern cities. That hasnt been the trend for sixty years. Greater Loop is and north lakefront are hot, but immigration from Mexico has declined steeply. I suspect depopulation continues in low-income south and west side neighborhoods. It’s not like they replaced all those units from the CHA towers that were torn down. I think that was the Daley game plan. Go Section 8 somewhere else. Florida, Texas and California keep doing their thing, as they have for decades. I’m betting the New York increase includes the hipster invasion of Brooklyn. Lot of neighborhoods have flipped there. I have friends who were urban pioneers there in the early 90s who are looking at a sweet payday when they cash out. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:53 am: SAP, about 80 or 90 of Illinois’ 102 counties are losing population, and Cook and most of the collars except McHenry are growing, according to the 2010 through 2014 estimates. Champaign County is one of the few downstate counties with any real growth. Western, eastern, southern, central IL are all in a slow decline. And I am surprised to see all 10 of the US cities over 1,000,000 are all gainers, even with Chicago’s teensy increase. It wasn’t always that way in recent Census history. - Skeptic - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:53 am: Just pass RTW and they will come! (/snark) - Anonin' - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:53 am: So did the Tribbies gain circulation or did that plunge continue - Arizona Bob - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:58 am: fka, there are only a few things that bring immigrants to a major city. For H1B and high tech workers, it’s jobs for them that pay well. Illinois had that in the 90s, but with the decline in the financial industry in Chicago a lot of that left. Our high tech computer and IT grads are going to Silicon valley, especially from the U of I, and our other engineers are going primarily to Texas, mainly to Houston, Dallas and Austin. The next tier of immigrants are illegals who work primarily in landscaping, non-union construction, food service and manufacturing. Non-union construction is pretty limited in Illinois for illegals, unlike in the Southwest where every morning you see loads of what appears to be illegals loading onto trucks as laborers. Food service is pretty stagnant right now, and manufacturing is on the decline in Illinois. The last tier is people who come here to get on the dole like senior family members and single moms with anchor babies. From what I’d seen, that expensive group is still coming to Chicago. It’s such a shame that people are leaving Illinois because it really is a wonderful place except for the weather, of course. What’s driving people away and keeping them from coming is not natural, it’s completely political in origin. Illinois puts impediments to job creation through what Springfield and City Hall do, they ran the economy into the ground to serve their own short term political benefit, and the rulers have shown no real interest in solving the problems they created. Change in culture, and the attitude of voters, is the only way to make things better IMHO, but there are too many benefitting from sucking the state dry for that to be allowed. Fix the culture, bring the jobs, attract the producers to revitalize the economy, and Illinois can come back. I’m not optimistic that a government “of the connected, by the connected and for the connected” will soon perish from Illinois, however. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:58 am: OW will be happy to know that Oswego is still on the upswing, cracking the 33,000 mark. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 11:59 am: No joke. I’m getting home delivery of the Trib, started 2 weeks ago. Funny thing is, I never ordered home delivery of the Trib. Called the Tribune circulation, told of my plight. Response? “Are you enjoying your Trib?” “I didn’t subscribe.” “I know, are you enjoying it? I know you want it stopped, but if you’re enjoying it, why stop?” “No thanks.” Such the business model. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 12:02 pm: - Six Degrees of Separation -, yep, and construction has started to increase to keep up, not much inventory. We even got new Town Signs. Glad you picked up what I was laying down, it was a “half” baked. - A guy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 12:13 pm: Make it 83. My kid’s moving to Lincoln Park in July. 84, if you count the roommate. - Wordslinger - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 12:21 pm: AB, you’re a laugh riot. No matter the subject, no matter the post, you have the same response every time. It’s like a word association game. If I said “porpoise,” I bet you’d say “illegal alien.” - Tone - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 12:49 pm: “According to the Census Bureau, Illinois lost 9,972 residents from 2013 to 2014, so Chicago did comparatively well.” Right, Chicago is the bright spot for the state. Which is not a good thing. - zonz - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 1:24 pm: Trends change. Chicago has water. And soon, a casino. - Maybe? - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 1:37 pm: This is kind of a red herring issue. The stat in question is just for the actual City, not the metro area. Obviously the City should be growing but the fact is that, of other cities which have better growth rates (other than NYC which had a pretty slow growth rate), the “growth” has been nearly entirely in areas that are within the city limits but which have much lower density (in other words, parts of the city that are more “suburban” and can more easily bear added density (also, those cities can allow people to have a “suburban” way of life within their limits). Chicago (and NYC) are 100% urban within their limits which means that more housing generally has to be denser housing (not merely new housing in previously un-occupied areas). See, for example, http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-suburban-are-big-american-cities/ That being said, it would be nice to see Chicago carry rates more like NYC (0.6%) but it isn’t ever going to have rates like you see in the sunbelt cities that have lots of room to grow within their City limits. - Tone - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 1:50 pm: Maybe?, did you see that IL lost 10,000 people in the latest estimates? - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 2:21 pm: - Tone -, Did you leave, or are you a “never were” Illinoisan? - Enviro - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 2:23 pm: If you have been in downtown Chicago, on I-55 or 294 during rush hour recently, you know that the Chicago area does not need more people competing for space on the highways. First we need to improve our infrastructure, then we will have space for more people in Illinois. - Tone - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 2:42 pm: I live in Chicago, Oswego Willy. - Tone - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 2:43 pm: Enviro, Chicago had 3.6Million people, today it has 2.7Million. We can handle it. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 2:50 pm: Long “reverse commute” to NY, or are you line the Governor and have 9 houses or so, which makes you a citizen of the world? If you could bring more people back, that would be great… - A guy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 2:57 pm: I heard a couple of wards got as many as 4. /s - Enviro - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:14 pm: - Tone -@ 2:43 pm: = …Chicago had 3.6Million people, today it has 2.7Million. We can handle it. = But the roads are not built to handle it. - Enviro - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:20 pm: Chicago had 3.6 Million people in 1950 when most families had one car. - A guy - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:27 pm: OMG, is that the argument your going with Enviro? A lot of city dwellers don’t have or need a car. People want space. They move. They have kids. They move. Jobs moved to N, NW, W, SW, S suburbs. They moved. Their kids grew up and like to party…25% of the family moved back to the city. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:31 pm: Yes, there are a LOT of non car options for city dwellers, including all the new Divvy bike racks, CTA buses and trains, Metra, and Uber, Lyft and all those taxis, which all serve to de-densify car traffic. However, I’d make the point that at the current net growth rate of 82 people a year, Chicago wouldn’t get to 3.3 million until the year 9059. - zonz - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:33 pm: I may have also mentioned that Chicago has water. And soon, a casino. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:34 pm: And anyone who would drive for an hour or 2 on one of our expressways, for the “privilege” of parking downtown for $40, is just plain nuts, unless it’s an absolutely necessary trip. Metra probably takes 300,000 cars off the road each day, and could absorb plenty more. - Andy S. - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 3:42 pm: If Chicago is shrinking or growing more slowly, it is not likely to be because of its high tax burden. I am reasonably sure the total tax burden for a typical resident is much higher in New York or Los Angeles than in Chicago, yet those cities are growing. Could it be that a higher tax burden that is accompanied by better public services and greater financial stability is actually a draw rather than e repellant? - Ethan Hawk - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 4:03 pm: The folks that I have been seeing leaving Chicago and Illinois in order to go to Texas, Nevada, Virginia, etc. have been fairly wealthy people. It would be interesting to see if the influx of 82 people coming into Chicago has proven to have been a net increase (or decrease) in money coming into (or out of) Illinois. My guess would be that there has been far more people with substantial wealth leaving Illinois. The people arriving in Illinois are more likely to be those seeking to try and earn a living. - Emily Booth - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 4:28 pm: I have a friend who is a prop mgr in a lakefront northside bldg and her bldg is always 100% rented. She gets lots of calls and she shows apts to people moving from out of state. She has been doing well in her commissions. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 4:45 pm: Tone 12:49 Right, Chicago is the bright spot for the state. Which is not a good thing. Cook County as a whole is the growth leader 2010-2014 at +48k but was projected to lose 179 people last year as Chicago gained its 82, so both are recently stagnant. For the same 2010-2014 period- DuPage +15k Kane +11k Kendall +6k Will +7k Lake +1k McHenry -2k Champaign +6k McLean +5k Most other counties were net losers or just holding their own with a slight gain or loss. Northeast IL is - Wordslinger - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 6:17 pm: AB, if you can’t see immigrants all around you as you go about your business in fhe Chicago area, then you need new peepers, Mr. Magoo. According to the Migration Policy Institute, Chicago ranks sixth among world cities proper in the number of foreign-born residents at 579,000. The top five are New York, London, Toronto, Los Angeles and Houston. Among world metro regions, Chicago ranks ninth at 1.63 million foreign-born residents. The top eight metros are New York, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Toronto, Paris, Miami and Sydney. FYI, the Migration Policy Institute reported that in 2014 China and India both surpassed Mexico in the number of immigrants to the United States. - Arizona Bob - Thursday, May 21, 15 @ 10:44 pm: I don’t have a problem seeing LEGAL immigrants, Word. My wife is a legally naturalized citizen from South America, so I see one every night! Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.