22 Comments - Lucky Pierre - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:12 am: No attempt to stem the #1 reason for the Illinois exodus- high property taxes. The Property Tax Task force included 56 members from the GA, 30 members from the Senate and two people appointed by the Governor who studied the issue for an entire year and did not even issue a report. - Precinct Captain - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:16 am: CUNY built a more interactive tool and you can switch between congress and both house of the leg https://www.redistrictingandyou.org/ - Oswego Willy - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:20 am: ===No attempt to stem the #1 reason for the Illinois exodus- high property taxes.=== Ok. Fine. Explain population increases in the suburbs. Maybe the schools and opportunities in those areas are worth paying the taxes? - Candy Dogood - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:26 am: Those that can move for opportunity do. A lot of the people that live in those red areas have relatively daunting commutes to their work place. The lack of economic opportunity and economic viability of our more rural regions is the the driving force behind most of the red, and the same factors in urban areas with a few different twists on driving forces. Anyone who cares about restoring the vitality of rural areas needs to recognize that the vitality of some urban areas can be addressed by the same programs and that leaning on 19th century industries that drove the original growth in the area might be good for naming baseball teams, but is a terrible way to set up a 21st century economy. Those red areas are correlated with lower performing schools, lower paid teachers, less likely to be well qualified teachers, worse internet service options, and lower household incomes. The only way that I know how to really fix this problem is to implement a basic income policy. For ironic, or tragic, or as a part of the symptom, the officials elected by the people left behind in the more rural areas of our state are the worst possible people to lead their communities to prosperity. - Blake - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:32 am: Population increase/decrease may be a good measure of how well an area is creating human flourishing, but how many are willing to adjust policy aims & if so how much for the purpose of creating an environment that results in a population increase? - Candy Dogood - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:34 am: ===No attempt to stem the #1 reason for the Illinois exodus- high property taxes.=== This map is basically a map of the lowest property value areas of the state painted red. I’m guilty of seeing this map as representative of problems that can be solved by policies I like, but at least my basis is actually related to what’s going on. This is a map of people moving to higher property value and higher property tax assessed areas. You need to take your blinders off every once and a while and get a load of the condition of our more rural communities. We also literally just had the only thing that can effectively lower local property taxes on the ballot — a measure that would have allowed for the replacement of local property tax to fund education by taxing higher incomes — voted down, largely by people living in many of those red areas. - don the legend - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:36 am: ==For ironic, or tragic, or as a part of the symptom, the officials elected by the people left behind in the more rural areas of our state are the worst possible people to lead their communities to prosperity.== Absolutely correct but they will tell their constituents that the election was stolen and their “way of life” is under attack. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:38 am: ===This is a map of people moving to higher property value and higher property tax assessed areas.=== If - Lucky Pierre - has a rational thought to this, I’d like to read it. ===how many are willing to adjust policy aims & if so how much for the purpose of creating an environment that results in a population increase?=== And… they are? Don’t hold your light under a bushel, “… to adjust policy aims & if so how much for the purpose of creating an environment that results in a population increase…” Go on. I’d like to read them. - Bakery Bob - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:47 am: ==a measure that would have allowed for the replacement of local property tax to fund education by taxing higher incomes== That’s not necessarily true. The money was not earmarked for anything in particular. - Amalia - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:47 am: looks like near west burbs lost. Harmon and Welch will get creative. - Blake - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 11:54 am: OW, the most certain to be correct answers I would have would be zoning clearly preventing housing supply from meeting demand by limiting what can be constructed. I wrote that comment more thinking people use population trends as a cudgel for their policy aims rather than as a guide for figuring out what their policy aims should be. Realistically any answer would likely generate backlash or the existing the policy would not be in place. - Blake - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 12:00 pm: The zoning comment would have greater affect on improving the statewide population trend than the already low real estate price areas because higher prices show greater unmet demand. - Mr Green Genes - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 12:17 pm: Interesting. I used to live in Island Lake, west of Waucanda in the area that lost population. When I lived there it was almost all farms and now it’s almost all condos and townhouses. I guess a lot of children lived in those farms? - EssentialStateEmployeeFromChatham - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 12:25 pm: =CUNY built a more interactive tool and you can switch between congress and both house of the leg= Interesting on CUNY’s website the population differences in regards to Springfield and Sangamon County when checking under state House. Of the local House seats Murphy’s 99th was the only one that had a population increase (3.2%). Mostly likely due to west side Springfield growth as well as in Chatham (of which I am one of those Springfield to Chatham moving statistics in the past decade). While Scherer’s 96th (which includes the East Side, downtown, and Capitol Complex area) lost 5.3% and Butler’s 87th (north ends of Springfield and the county) lost 4.1%. It will be interesting how Springfield and Sangamon County gets divided up for the next 5 GA’s. And I would not be surprised to see at least Hammond’s or Bourne’s seats brought into parts of Sangamon County too to offset the 99th population growth. - Merica - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 12:27 pm: People move to and from places for a lot of different reasons. (1) jobs/opportunity, (2) affordability, (3) good schools, (4) manmade and natural attractions, all kinds of reasons. Central and Southern Illinois (outside of Springfield) don’t have a lot of jobs, have affordable old homes but extremely high taxes and very expensive new homes, have poor schools, and have little to do and not much to see. The number 1 complaint from tourists in Springfield was “lack of scenery” (ouch!). Laws and appropriations can’t fix some of these problems. - Telly - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 12:37 pm: Looks to me like the predominately Latino areas on Northwest and Southwest sides of the city have lost population, reversing a longstanding trend. - Friendly Bob Adams - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 12:50 pm: Telly- a lot of the Latino families from those red areas have moved to the green areas. - Arsenal - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 1:03 pm: ==No attempt to stem the #1 reason for the Illinois exodus- high property taxes.== Not sure a map that shows population growth on the north side of Chicago really supports this point. ==The Property Tax Task force included 56 members from the GA, 30 members from the Senate== The Senate is part of the GA. - Thomas Paine - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 1:46 pm: “Population increased in areas with the best quality of life and decreased in areas with the lowest quality of life” would have been a shorter answer. - Amalia - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 2:22 pm: that map on the south side of Chicago is quite twisted. - Not the Dude - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 2:25 pm: I have several relatives that live in the Metro East area. They all love Missouri, but none have moved yet. - TheInvisibleMan - Friday, Mar 26, 21 @ 5:41 pm: ===Rep. Mark Batinick’s 97th District is up 10 percent=== Probably why he recently submitted that bill to purge voter rolls. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.