Downstate is shrinking
Friday, Jan 10, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Wirepoints…
Collectively, Illinois’ downstate counties have suffered the worst loss of population, by far. The whole region lost nearly 120,000 people between 2010 and 2018 – more than 2.5 percent of its total population.
Three (DuPage, Will and Kane) of the five collar counties gained population, leaving the collar counties as the only growth area in Illinois.
However, that increase was largely at the expense of Cook County. Previous migration data shows many new collar residents come from Cook County.
Cook County itself lost 19,000, or 0.4 percent, of its total population over the 2010-2018. That’s on top of the more than 200,000 people it lost in the decade prior to that.
The Downstate population plunge includes people who moved to Chicagoland. They didn’t all leave for other states or countries. Click here and you’ll see the latest IRS numbers on that.
All counties with population increases over that time period were Champaign, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, McLean, Monroe, Will and Williamson.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 2:52 pm:
Shrinking is one way to describe what is happening in some rural counties. Depopulating is another.
The folks who remain are likely to be older, in need of better health care and reliant on public assistance in some form. We need a plan to address this soon-to-be crisis in rural Illinois and there are no easy answers.
- DuPage Saint - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:04 pm:
The redistricting will be brutal. Not that it will be any less Democratic but Chicago will be a fight of epic proportions
- Jibba - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:10 pm:
DuPage Saint…given the makeup of Illinois, I’m not convinced that it will be easy to make even one Dem leaning district downstate at all, especially if you need to bolster Underwood and Bustos. Do you split or group the major downstate cities? They are not all solidly Dem and some even lean R, and any minor advantage can get wiped out quickly by adding surrounding rural areas.
- H-W - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:13 pm:
Given the political obsession with migration patterns, it would be perhaps useful for politicians and wonks to engage demographers for help in understanding migration within the U.S.
Yes, a lot of people move around Illinois. A lot of people also move into Illinois, and a lot of people move out of Illinois. Indeed, 67,000 Illinoisans moved overseas in 2018.
Arguing as some do that taxes are a cause assumes that those who move generally own property and are “overtaxed” to the point that they will sacrifice friends and families and jobs. But this does not explain the mobility patterns of renters (poor people, the working poor, and many in the working class). It also does not explain the mobility patterns of many Illinoisans who do not live in Chicagoland. And it certainly does not explain why the largest out-migration pattern is “overseas.”
The fact that Illinois is one of the largest population bases, guarantees that whatever is going on, Illinois will rank high among the states.
The fact that we have a net out-migration pattern is at best, partly related to some upper-middle class people moving so as to protect their economic assets. But it is also likely that some move seeking warmth, some seeking to reconnect with family, some seeking Red State Politics, some seeking better jobs, some seeking any jobs, etc.
Demographers (cf. Danaher) have shown most people who migrate do not do so in order to find better social policies and programs.
The obsession of politicians and others on the migration of people is rarely a reflection of a complex reality, and instead, a simplistic, argument-based search for any data (often, spurious relationships) that can be offered so as to support platforms. Hence, some suggest taxes cause people to leave, while others suggest poor people migrate toward higher benefits. Again, these theses regarding mobility patterns are simply data gathered to support arguments, rather than the results of sophisticated causal modeling by demographers.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:13 pm:
To the sheer politics,
The 15th district is gone. One seat, and where the population left, downstate will lose a member of Congress.
To just the idea of what’s happening, - 47th Ward - is really calling it well. It’s getting older and fewer in downstate Illinois and hospitals and medial need will be faced with an aging population needing more long term care, and will there be facilities, given the sheer lack of people?
It will be something to watch.
- Anyone Remember - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:14 pm:
Again, the leading economic export of most Illinois counties is high school graduates. Question - has Wirepoint looked at Red States like OK / KS / NE / SD?
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:19 pm:
===export of most Illinois counties is high school graduates===
We don’t have universities in every county.
- Truthteller r - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:24 pm:
If the Tribune’s analysis (taxation explains migration) is correct, we can assume that the 12,900 Illinois filers who moved to Indiana did so because they want lower taxes and the 11,900 filers who moved to California did so because they want higher taxes.
- Anyone Remember - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:26 pm:
“We don’t have universities in every county.”
True. But except for teaching, what jobs exist for college graduates to come home to? How many chemical engineers hired every year in Jasper County? CPAs in Alexander County?
- Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:40 pm:
47th Ward 2:52 - It’s a crisis for the younger folks who stay, too. My Central IL daughter has trouble finding day care in her little “metropolis” to the extent she is probably going to quit her decent-paying job and try to establish a home-based business.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:48 pm:
The whole depopulating trend is the crisis Six. It’s going to affect all of us in Illinois and we need to start coming up with some ideas to address it asap.
- City Zen - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:52 pm:
==12,900 Illinois filers who moved to Indiana did so because they want lower taxes and the 11,900 filers who moved to California did so because they want higher taxes.==
I must’ve missed the South Shore Line expansion to San Bernadino.