2014 Illinois City Population Estimates (Peoria, Springfield: homes, high school, college)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Maintainschaos

The only students that would be counted towards the Champaign census would be permanent residents of Champaign, of which most of those at UIUC aren't.

Not true. There's no hard, fast rule about where college students are to be counted. The Census form asks, but doesn't require, you to count yourself where you reside for most of the year. For most college students, that would be where they attend college. However, some probably count their home address instead, and some are probably counted twice as they list their college town while their parents also include them among their household members when filling out their own forms.

There are compelling arguments for both sides: Counting students where they attend school tends to exaggerate the political clout of university towns when drawing up Congressional districts by including whole swaths of people who don't vote in that district; on the other hand it more accurately reflects the impact they have on infrastructure and other government services where they attend school when parceling out state and federal funding for those projects/services.

[Maintainschaos]

I guess I should have clarified that I didn't think that most undergrad increases were counted in the census estimates. I lived in Boston during one census, and the forms made it clear that living there for school was not enough to establish Boston as my residency. At the tail end of my graduate school, I was in Madison for the next census. As a 12 month resident and being fully employed, I was clearly a resident of Madison and the census forms made this evident, too. I can understand the murkiness. Nevertheless, I can't imagine the ~4,000 persons increase in C/U would be attributed just to university students as that would represent, what?, 10% of their entire student body increasing in just 4 years?

[ColdAilment]

It's sad to see Rockford losing population and slipping to third in the last census and possibly 5th by the next census, what's going on there?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by ColdAilment

It's sad to see Rockford losing population and slipping to third in the last census and possibly 5th by the next census, what's going on there?

Well... it's got high crime, high unemployment, lousy schools, crumbling infrastructure, and outrageous property taxes even by IL standards. Other than that I'm sure it has a lot going for it.

Rockford had actually seen consistent population gains from one census to the next, the 1980 and 1990 censuses being the only exceptions. There was something of a building boom on the east side of town in recent decades as people were using Rockford as a cheaper alternative to Chicago suburbia while still having access to employment nodes in the NW suburbs. That seems to have reached its peak.

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by Drover

Well... it's got high crime, high unemployment, lousy schools, crumbling infrastructure, and outrageous property taxes even by IL standards. Other than that I'm sure it has a lot going for it.

Rockford had actually seen consistent population gains from one census to the next, the 1980 and 1990 censuses being the only exceptions. There was something of a building boom on the east side of town in recent decades as people were using Rockford as a cheaper alternative to Chicago suburbia while still having access to employment nodes in the NW suburbs. That seems to have reached its peak.

Is the crime there really as bad as people say? Chicago gets a bad rap in crime too, yet it's almost entirely relegated to the south side hoods, the north side and downtown are very low in crime.

I know Rockford has a few companies that provide high tech jobs, one of them specializes in aerospace engineering, can't recall the name of it though.

[illstate89]

Originally Posted by Maintainschaos

You're absolutely right, and with the shift of the ADM HQ to Chicago, it'll likely only get worse. Anecdotally, the people I knew who used to live in Decatur either moved outside of Decatur, to Springfield, or out all together. There's not a whole lot left to keep them in Deatur.

I just want to point out as far as Decatur goes, the ADM North American HQ is still located in Decatur along with all of the operations that existed before the move to Chicago. ADM more or less moved "Global" HQ to Chicago and only about 60 employees. ADM's workforce is actually growing with the boom in the transportation industry within the last year or 2. Companies have built warehouses etc in the area. The problem in Decatur is Caterpillar. The Decatur location manufactures the mining trucks and the mining industry is not stable meaning constant layoffs (temporary & permanent) causing the population drops. Decatur has its issues and there certainly isn't as much to do as in a place like Champaign. However, there are improvements being made & plans to better the city.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Maintainschaos

You're absolutely right, and with the shift of the ADM HQ to Chicago, it'll likely only get worse. Anecdotally, the people I knew who used to live in Decatur either moved outside of Decatur, to Springfield, or out all together. There's not a whole lot left to keep them in Deatur.

My aunt and grandmother still live there. You couldn't pry 'em out of that place, even to the extent that my cousin goes to private schools rather than my aunt relocating to Forsythe or something.

[Maintainschaos]

Originally Posted by illstate89

Decatur has its issues and there certainly isn't as much to do as in a place like Champaign. However, there are improvements being made & plans to better the city.

Glad to hear there are planned improvements for Decatur.

[STLCityMike]

Originally Posted by linicx

Thanks!

I noticed some glaring errors. Mostly mixing of counties. It is still an educated guess. The biggest surprise is Quincy.

Curious - what did you expect from Quincy that made this a surpise for you?

[linicx]

Growth. Cousin says, "it's growing like a weed." I think the county census is more telling. Of our 102 counties only 16 are growing. The others show a loss fewer than 10 to more than a thousand. Some of the principle cities may show a loss while their counties are growing. The counties show a growth much the same way. Some are growing very slowly while others exploded. The winners include Cook, Champaign, DuPage, Effingham, Lake, Grundy, Johnson, Kendall, McLean, Monroe, Peoria, Sangamon, Tazewell, Will, Williamson, and Woodford.

I don't think it is any surprise that Cook Counties and some of the counties near it are growing, or that towns with a large college presence are growing. The big surprise is in the MSA where the largest city and county may grow while others in the MSA may not. An example is Sangamon and Menard Counties in the Springfield MSA where Menard declined. Sometimes the largest city may decline while its county and other counties in its MSA may or may not grow. And Example is the 7 county Peoria MSA. The City of Peoria declined. However the Counties of Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford grew, whilst the others of Fulton, Stark, Marshall, and Mason did not

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral...imates_fo.html . Select Illinois in the Limit by State List, click the Counties button under Type, then click Submit. .