Chicago area leads U.S. in population loss, sees drop for 2nd year in a row
Chicago area leads U.S. in population loss, sees drop for 2nd year in a row
Marwa Eltagouri and Grace Wong Contact ReportersChicago Tribune
Patrice Bedford had never questioned raising her baby in Chicago.
But on a springtime stroll during the first trimester of her pregnancy last year, a heightened sense of smell — piqued by pungent neighborhood odors — made her view the city differently.
The city's expensive, she said. Public schools face an unfolding financial crisis and the violence is "terrifying and frightening" to a parent-to-be. It didn't take long for Bedford, 28, to realize it was time to pack up and leave her Roscoe Village home.
She, her husband and their son, now 6 weeks old, are preparing to move to Denver this summer.
"We've been to Colorado before and visited so many times, and just remembered how astonishingly clean and how fresh the air was and easy to breathe," said Bedford, who has lived in Chicago for five years. "I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore in the city."
Of the country's 10 largest cities, the Chicago metropolitan statistical area was the only one to drop in population between 2015 and 2016. The region, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the city and suburbs and extends into Wisconsin and Indiana.
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The Chicago metropolitan area as a whole lost 19,570 residents in 2016, registering the greatest loss of any metropolitan area in the country. It's the area's second consecutive year of population loss: In 2015, the region saw its first decline since at least 1990, losing 11,324 people.
By most estimates, the Chicago area's population will continue to decline in the coming years. Over the past year, the Tribune surveyed dozens of former residents who've packed up in recent years and they cited a variety of reasons: high taxes, the state budget stalemate, crime, the unemployment rate and weather. Census data released Thursday suggests the root of the problem is in the city of Chicago and Cook County: The county in 2016 had the largest loss of any county nationwide, losing 21,324 residents.
Experts say the pattern goes beyond just the Chicago region. For the third consecutive year, Illinois lost more residents than any other state in 2016, losing 37,508 people, according to U.S. census data released in December.
Nearly all the cities that lost population in 2016 are located in the Midwest or northern parts of the country. Those cities, which are in smaller metropolitan areas, include St. Louis, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh.
"There's this big regional thing going on. It's not about what's wrong with Chicago — if anything, it's what's wrong with the Midwest or the Northeast," said Rob Paral, a Chicago-based demographer.
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Chicago losing population, could be overtaken by Houston as 3rd-largest
Illinois was among eight states to lose residents, putting its population at 12,801,539 people, its lowest since about 2009.
The state's population first began to drop in 2014, when the state lost 11,961 people. That number more than doubled in 2015, with a loss of 28,497 people, and further multiplied in 2016, according to census data.
The potential fallout is both political and financial. Federal and state government dollars are often distributed to local government agencies based on population, so a drop in population creates long-term budget concerns. And when communities pour millions into infrastructure and schools, they're basing their projections on future growth. If that growth doesn't happen, experts say, the remaining taxpayers are stuck covering the cost.
"I don't even have a job yet or a place to live. But we know we aren't staying," Bedford said. She loves her current job as a teacher but feels her child's future is more important.
The population plunge is mostly a result of a long-standing pattern of losing residents to other states. About 89,547 residents left for other states in 2016, a number that couldn't be offset by new residents and births, according to an analysis of the data released Thursday, which measured population growth between July 2015 and July 2016. The number of people leaving the Chicago region is the highest it's been since at least 1990.
In Cook County, 66,244 people moved out in 2016, and 23,303 people left the rest of Chicago's collar counties, according to an analysis of the data by William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. Some suburbs, like in Will, Kane and Kendall counties, saw growth spurts.
http://tu9srvbirvvtnsr3d3cudhjiaw1nl...3D_$/$/$/$/$/$Chris and Patrice Bedford hold their 6-week-old son, Theodore, at their home in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood. The Bedfords plan to move out of Chicago around July. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
More than any other city, Chicago has depended on Mexican immigrants to balance the sluggish growth of its native-born population. During the 1990s, immigration accounted for most of Chicago's population growth.
After 2007, when Mexican-born populations began to fall across all the nation's major metropolitan areas, most cities managed to make up for the loss with the growth of their native populations. Chicago couldn't.
Now, native Chicagoans are heading for the Sun Belt states — those with the country's warmest climates, like Texas, Arizona and Florida. During the years after the economic recession of the mid-2000s, migration to those states paused but started up again because warmer states in the South and West have affordable housing and better job opportunities.
While Chicago suffered the largest population loss of any metropolitan area, the greatest metropolitan population gains were in Texas and Arizona. The Dallas-Fort Worth- Arlington, Texas, metropolitan area gained more than 143,000 residents in 2016, and the Houston region gained about 125,000. The Phoenix area gained about 94,000 residents and the Atlanta region gained about 91,000 people.
The greatest number of Illinois residents in recent years have gone to Texas, followed by Florida, Indiana, California and Arizona, according to 2013 Internal Revenue Service migration data.
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Census numbers don't tell the whole story about Chicago's declining population
The exodus to warmer states is led by the Chicago region's black population, in search of stable incomes and safe neighborhoods. More than 9,000 black residents left Cook County between 2014 and 2015.
"No group is leaving the county as much as they are," Paral said. "The loss of African-Americans is really a big factor."
For some residents who've left, the weather wasn't as much of a driving factor as jobs and business opportunities. Illinois residents have flooded neighboring Midwestern states with healthier economies, moving into states like Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. Those who've left have said that if Illinois had a more prosperous economy, they would consider staying.
"Illinois should be one of the fastest growing states," said Eleni Demertzis, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bruce Rauner, in an emailed statement. "Instead, people are leaving. That is why Gov. Rauner is working so hard to pass a truly balanced budget in order to make changes that attract employers and create good jobs."
Among those leaving are younger working-age adults, who make up some of the largest groups leaving the state, experts say. While it's common for young people to leave Illinois for jobs in different states, those numbers haven't been offset by young people moving into the Chicago region from other states.
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Forget hog butcher for the world. Chicago's big export now is Chicagoans.
Some experts agree the region's second year of population loss signifies a downward trend. But others, like Paral, say it's too soon to tell. While the Chicago region lost about 19,000 people last year, the region gained that same amount not long ago, between 2012 and 2013. He prefers to call the pattern a "stretch of flat growth."
"Sure, we would rather be an area that's growing (more rapidly)," he said. "When you grow, you have more consumers. When you grow, you have more producers. And therefore a more dynamic economy."
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