Population dropoff (Chicago, Aurora, Tinley Park: homes, neighborhoods, schools)

[Steve-o]

There are several cities out in the burbs that are amongst the fastest growing in the nation... Naperville, Aurora, Joliet, Kendall County in general as well.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by mdz

very interesting map, thanks for the post. Not surprisingly, most of the loss in population is in the economically depressed west side and south side. Tearing down the housing complexes probably is the biggest reason for that.

I doubt it since the map tracks population movement from 1990-2000, and they didn't even start depopulating the CHA complexes until about 1999. The vast majority of them were still occupied by 2000.

[mdz]

good point, I guess people were leaving even beforehand

[BRU67]

It's hard to draw much from this map without more information. Typically, people will flee declining areas -- even those responsible for it. Crime gets very high and you don't have even basic amenities like grocery and convenience stores, much less bars and restaurants. So it isn't just the destruction of the CHA projects that caused the "green" marks in the declining areas. That's been a known pattern for decades. On the flip side, areas which are gentrifying also experience population loss because the households get smaller. So you can't tell much about what's really going on by simply looking at this map.

[magellan]

It's not just the city of Chicago, the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metro area is losing more people than it is gaining (like many Midwestern cities) by about 60 - 70,000/year since 1997. There is population growth, but it has slowed from the 90's and is mainly due to more births than deaths:

http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/popm00/pcbsa16980.html
(far right column, "net domestic migration")

I'm guessing it is hitting most Midwestern cities because of baby-boomers starting to move South for retirement (or people fed up with cold weather). Retirees don't really care that much about job growth, as long as they are getting a good investment.

[EugeneBKLYN]

I'm starting to think that Chicago is a city where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Is that the case over there?

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by EugeneBKLYN

I'm starting to think that Chicago is a city where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Is that the case over there?

I think its fair to say that, over the past few decades, the United States of American is a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't think Chicago is really all that different than any American city in terms overall economic trends. The urban poor have taken it on the chin for over thirty years ever since manufacturing/union jobs have declined. Chicago's advantage, over many other "rustbelt" cities, is its success in reinventing itself as a post-industrial city where high-paid, highly-educated "knowledge" workers want to live.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by EugeneBKLYN

Low income residents moving to the suburbs?

...What?

What kind of suburbs line around Chicago? Are they like smaller cities?
Because New York's suburbs are just houses lined up for blocks on end, which are more expensive than buying a home in the city proper because of taxes, I think. BUT more bang for the buck.

Over here the low-income residents have no choice but to live in the city. They can't afford to live in the suburbs. lol...

I don't see why Chicago isn't affordable for most anybody. I checked out a few apartment listings which have some nice furnished studio apartments for around 450/m. Are the rents climbing that fast?

As mentioned by some others, the low income residents seem to be moving more into the south suburbs and Northwest Indiana (the equivalent of what Newark is to New Yorkers). The north and west suburbs, on the other hand, are probably more in line with what you're thinking of in terms of prototypical affluent towns comparable to Westchester County or Connecticut.

In addition to the transient population and phase-out of housing projects, I also think that there are a substantial number of investors and second home buyers that are fueling the condo construction in downtown Chicago beyond the full-time residents. There are enough suburbanites or out-of-towners (there was just an article in the Chicago Tribune this past Sunday on the rush of real estate investors from Ireland buying up properties in the city) that want and can afford a city pad for the weekends that there continues to be demand for more high-end housing in the city even though they might live elsewhere during the week.

What's important for Chicago is that the population, while slightly trickling downward since it's now geared more toward singles and DINKs as opposed to families, is generally pretty stable while the entire metro area is growing a pretty good clip. Contrast this with places such as St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland that are facing the double-whammy of an continuous exodus from their urban cores while their metro areas aren't expanding much at all.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

Chicago's advantage, over many other "rustbelt" cities, is its success in reinventing itself as a post-industrial city where high-paid, highly-educated "knowledge" workers want to live.

Actually Chicago's advantage was embedded into its economy long before the decline of manufacture and heavy industry. By then Chicago had already diversified into many other industries such as financial services, accounting/consulting services, corporate retail, transportation, insurance, legal services, pharmaceuticals, et cetera. Chicago didn't have to "reinvent" itself because it was already substantially diversified before the middle of the 20th century. Even though the industrial decline hit certain parts of the city pretty hard, Chicago weathered it much better than areas like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Lehigh Valley (Allentown/Bethlehem), et cetera, whose economies were based almost entirely on heavy industry/manufacture.

[Milliano]

Originally Posted by Drover

I doubt it since the map tracks population movement from 1990-2000, and they didn't even start depopulating the CHA complexes until about 1999. The vast majority of them were still occupied by 2000.

The vast majority of the apartments probably weren't 'occupied' by 2000. Unless by 'occupied' you mean uncounted squatters, gang members, and drug dealers. From 1990 to 2000 the populations of them were in major decline.

Originally Posted by BRU67

On the flip side, areas which are gentrifying also experience population loss because the households get smaller. So you can't tell much about what's really going on by simply looking at this map.

Is that the case that the population declines with gentrification? I thought gentrification involved creating more homes, with things like high rise apartment complexes. Anyway that web link that I gave shows a lot of maps detailing those other issues of it, like income change and ethnic change.