The big media in our region sucks. Such a shame

It wasn’t terribly expensive to install new face brick and lintels on my 4 story building and get it to match the 100 year old masonry and mortar. A single family home doesn’t have that much brick to repair, so why set up for a maintenance nightmare when the paint starts to chip from all the moisture held back?

Would be nice. My guess is it's flat w/ decent gains on income, but who knows. Maybe an increase of 25-50k in the MSA. Most (if not all) of that in Kendall and Kane and everyone else more or less flat.

Depending on where Wisconsin's gains are concentrated, the Chicago-Milwaukee CSA could happen sooner than we thought. Especially if the pandemic makes commuting between Chicago and Milwaukee more tolerable/not an every day thing.

I'll say this: my job oversees data of Chicago residents (ie. You have to be a Chicago resident to be in the database) and the total number has always increased for the 9 years I've been there, but there are some accuracy issues though.

When will the county and municipal data be release?

Because you can't dupe a bunch of rubes into believing it's new and trendy and edgy unless it vaguely resembles a medium security penitentiary

I don't know when it started, but every new rehab looks like that. Someone did the same thing to a bungalow near me...

Yeah the Tribune article was clearly written expecting a much larger loss.

I knew something was wrong with the estimates when a few households stopped me in the streets and stated that they had not received a form in the mail or why had no one come to their door. I also recall the first few weeks of enumerating hundreds of addresses that did not exist. Mostly because these addresses were incorrect in the system. Lolz! That's why we need enumerators.

You do realize what a survey is right? Most people are not supposed to get them. That's why there is a margin of error attached to every measure.

Last Census at least for chicago I checked the estimate versus the decennial at the tract level. Some were extremely accurate, like only off by a few people. Some off by maybe 50 people which is still accurate in most cases. Some were way off though. It'll be interesting to know which are in these categories this time around.

Does anyone know when the more detailed data gets released? I'm having trouble finding it on census.gov.

there seems to be some uncertainty about when exactly the rest of the data will be released.

poking around online, i've heard august or september, but it looks like the bureau itself has not committed to a hard and fast date yet.

Obviously the loss was much less than expected, which is great. But Illinois is still one of only 3 states to lose population which is terrible. As others have noted, I'm sure the loss will be from downstate. I expect Chicago will be relatively steady with losses in black population offset by gains in whites and asians.

Right but the narrative was backwards. The fact that it was a loss was no surprise, the surprise was that the loss was so small. A fairer title, IMO would have been:

Illinois loses fewer people than expected in 2020 census

My guess is that the Census is right about the demographic trends but yeah, off on the numbers.

I agree that would be a fairer title. But the Tribune especially you can't expect much. Half of their game is doom and gloom. Remember how a few years ago on here Vlajos noted that the Census updated their estimates and would have actually shown a growth from the previous estimate for Chicago? Crains updated their story to talk about it. Tribune though? Nope.

yesterday, on the trib's website, right below the main headline of the census figures release, was a link to the editorial board's older doom & gloom op-ed about "The Great Illinois Exodus" based on the CB's woefully incorrect estimates of IL losing a quarter of a million people.

yes, we all agree that it's not good at all that illinois shrunk by 18,000 people overall, but that's still some disingenuous shit, which is par for the course for the trib.


The Chicago Tribune: doing the city of chicago absolutely zero favors, and not even caring about it, for far too long

the colonel would probably literally shoot everyone in charge of the trib these days for backstabbing chicago so relentlessly.

Maybe "survey" is the incorrect term. According to our training, every address in the U.S. is supposed to receive it. For those that do not complete it, we show up at your door.

^ Did you stop to think that, maybe, the Trib just used the data that was at their disposal in order to report a “great exodus”? It’s not ‘doom and gloom’ to say “holy crap, estimates are reporting that hundreds of thousands of people are leaving Illinois!” Lots of people, including most of the forumers here, bought these numbers and had various theories about what was going on.

Sorry, but the Tribune is NOT biased. It just doesn’t try to coddle a highly partisan reader base like newspapers post-2010 have begun doing. People here find it weird. They want their political biases coddled. I’m glad the Tribune isn’t doing that. Hats off to the Tribune.

And I’m glad that the population counts ended up being wrong and corrected by the census. Let’s now be happy and stop pointing fingers since we all know that pretty much all of us believed those numbers until the census corrected them last week.

lol, it's 2021 the trib is a right wing rag

Dahleen Glanton must feel out of place at the Tribune.... all of those Trumpists working there :haha:

Did you stop to think that, maybe, the trib could have not linked to its "Great Illinois Exodus" op-ed after they realized that the info it was based on was wildly incorrect?

I'm sorry, but that's willfully disingenuous shit, and it's par for the course for the utterly trash newspaper the trib has become.

And my criticism of the trib has jack shit to do with politics or whatever stupid-ass culture war ax-grinding you're on about.

^ It’s not the Tribune’s job to NOT report the news, dude. Sounds like it’s you who has an axe to grind.

It’s the Tribunes job to report what is happening and ask questions.

Maybe it was a bad idea to link to an older op Ed when the new data was already out, but, who the shit cares? Sounds like you just want a cheerleader instead of a newspaper. I’m glad that the Tribune is actually trying to do it’s job :tup:

They should just rename themselves the Barrington Tribune, since that is their target demographic.

Yeah, there is a detailed long survey that a small portion of people receive, but everybody should have received the census form.

Yes, I want the hometown paper to cheerlead when it's called for. Or if not cheerlead, at least not go out of its way to damage our city At every turn.

Like I dunno, get off their lazy-asses and write a new op-ed that frames the many challenges facing illinois within the proper context of the reality that reports of the "Great Illinois Exodus" have been greatly exaggerated.

They won't do it because it's become a trash paper.

Anyway, fuck the trib.

And FTR, my comments have absolutely nothing to do with politics.

^ We have cheerleaders. World Business Chicago is one. The city’s leaders are another. Choose Chicago is a third. I frankly think that they need to do a better job of cheerleading than expecting our newspapers to do it.

The newspaper’s job is to report the news.. If it didn’t report the news and just acted like a cheerleader, it would be regarded as an even more shitty paper, actually.

Fine, it’s not political and that’s great. But I just don’t get what more you would expect from a newspaper that was being presented ACS & census data year after year showing that literally hundreds of thousands of people are leaving Illinois, the black middle class is bailing, and murders rates continue to be stubbornly very high compared to peer cities?

To the contrary, a rosy outlook given that information would’ve been disingenuous, as opposed to what the Tribune actually has been doing.

How can you still not understand what I'm talking about?

I'm not saying the op-ed should have never been written, I'm saying that relinking to it on the very same day when the CB issued the real data that refuted the erroneous info it was based on in the first place was completely fucking stupid and intentionally misleading.

Why is the trib going out of its way to intentionally mislead its readers?

Oh that's right, because it's a shit paper.

It's about the stories that the Tribune chooses to emphasize, which are overwhelmingly anti-transit, anti-bike and scaremongering. Did the Tribune even bother running this story, for example: https://chicago.suntimes.com/educati...e-college-prep

No, it’s the Tribune’s job to report the news and not cater to highly biased and narrow segments of the population. Remember when newspapers were like that? Ahh.. breath of fresh air. That is how a newspaper for the broad public differs from a forum full of like minded people who have identical views on transit and urbanism. It’s nice to read various viewpoints, in my opinion.

By the way, arguably there is still an exodus from Illinois. I mean, was it really disingenuous for the Tribune to post that op-Ed? Really? Like, we are one of 3 States to lose population, and the state lost population for the first time in its history. New York friggin gained well over 800,000 people! Something is still very wrong here. Any good newspaper won’t pretend that all is dandy and try to explore what the hell is going on. Even JB acknowledges that the census data was not good news.

The fact that you don't think that a newspaper intentionally misleading its readers is an issue really says it all.

Nothing much left to discuss.

Enjoy your daily trib, I guess.

Actually, they should be objectively reporting both. You can't have it either way. Most of their reporting was based on previous Census estimates. Now we have the real thing, so they report that. Good journalism should also say by the way, the estimates the Census had were way off from the real thing too.

If you don't see this, then I don't know what to tell you. Losing population is bad, and they should be reporting that. They should should be reporting that the Census was literally almost 14X too high in their estimates and while losing population is bad, it's not as bad as everyone thought originally.

I have not followed the news coverage closely. But there is much that should be looked into. Obviously, why there are such large discrepancies in much of the country. And how the annual estimates may have affected federal fund allocations.

The Trib is crap. I also find the fact that Illinois lost residents as very concerning. I am *overjoyed* that we did not lose the amount we have been fearing for the better part of last decade, and that alone is a reason to feel great, but it may be premature to bust out the champagne and celebrate. Our leaders need to stop the bleeding and get the state growing again. There is no one single reason for the state's population loss (black flight from the Southland, depopulation of rural areas, reduced immigration from Mexico/Central-South America, flat manufacturing jobs growth, tax uncertainty in regards to the state/city pension crisis, etc), and its not going to be a one size fits all solution. Either way, we need to get to work. Illinois & Chicago are blessed with wonderful bones, we have a great geographic location (nearly limitless freshwater, geographic center of the country, etc), a deep and talented workforce, excellent transit infrastructure, etc. Others do more with less. We are clearly transitioning into a post industrial economy and society, and it has been a painful transition for sure, but I feel optimistic about the city and the state overall.

Aren’t you the guy who didn’t want to discuss how WFH hurts Chicago’s economy “because it’s so obvious”

Well, the earlier census estimates versus the real count were WAY off, that’s also “very obvious” but they clearly, like you, didn’t think that was “worth discussing”. What is far more important to discuss is why Illinois is still losing people when basically everyplace else is growing. They clearly and rightly think it’s a huge problem, and I hope that they explore it more. I sure would rather read an analysis of that than “we didn’t lose a quarter million people, we only lost 20,000 people, nanner nanner nanner! Let’s return to business as usual, nothing to see here!”

If Illinois and New York and Pennsylvania all lost population or broke even, I would say “ok, this is part of something larger and more systemic with northern/northeastern States and places with legacy infrastructure, etc”. But nope. Illinois is completely an outlier here. It’s not doom and gloom when it’s the truth, and I have zero doubt that the editorial board of the Tribune is bothered by it and wants Chicago to do well, probably as much or more than any of you people here do.

Right. Because comparing me, a guy on a forum that probably less than 50 people read and not a journalist is the same as one of the largest newspapers in the country with millions of subscribers.

Get the fuck outta here with this. I do think Illinois losing people was obvious too but not by as much is a huge surprise. I already wrote about my theory why and there's not much else I have to say until the rest of the data comes out where regular people like us can actually explore it.

Rather than reporting on 5 Chicago public schools ranking in the top 100 high schools according to US News (https://www.usnews.com/education/bes...ional-rankings, ok, it's a bullshit ranking, but still!), the Tribune has this outrage piece on Waukegan graduation requirements: https://www.chicagotribune.com/subur...4~4~4~art%20no

This is an odd comment. Looks like you’re now just fishing for reasons to pick on the Tribune. It’s a huge newspaper with a lot of news and a lot of viewpoints. So I’m sure that anyone who has an ax to grind with that paper will find some kind of article or editorial that will make their case for them.

I read that article about Waukegan you posted just now. I didn’t see any outrage in it. Quote the portion of the article where you saw that.

It's a fine article that is surely interesting to people in Waukegan, but I have no idea why it was on the front page of the Tribune web site other than that "[minority-majority] school district lowers standards" probably drives clicks for the Tribune base. But maybe it's more incompetence than malice.

edit: ok, it's no longer linked to from the front page of the web site. Someone probably just fucked up...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opini...324-story.html

That pesky Chicago Tribune! They hate Chicago! They never report anything!!! :madwife:

I could be wrong, but it seems some people are annoyed by the frequency of doom and gloom compared to more positive pieces. The loss is a loss, but we've spent the better part of a decade hearing about drops of 80,000+ per year.

For the total loss to be less than a quarter of that over 10 years is quite a miss, but that underestimation won't garner nearly as much attention (even though it's arguably still not great news) because they'd been hyping a much worse result.

It’s misplaced anger at the Tribune for alleged ‘doom and gloom’ based on a preconceived notion that the newspaper has an anti-Chicago bias.

I don’t buy it, and nobody here has done a thing to prove it. It simply reported the news as it was coming over the years, just as other local papers did. I just Googled “Chicago population loss Sun Times” and got this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sun+...ile-gws-wiz-hp

They reported much of the same stuff over the years.

The problem is the ACS and the Census bureau, not the local newspapers simply doing their jobs

It's not solely on the Tribune, but I doubt they'll give the same attention to the real numbers that they did the estimates. Maybe 3 people care about the US Census Bureau or ACS data enough to seek it out if it's not on the front page of the paper. If you spend 6+ years writing articles about drops exceeding 200,000 people total, that starts to affect people's behaviors and perceptions, which then worsens (or makes real) the perceptions of decline.

The Trib has a platform and how they choose to use that platform speaks volumes.

It isn't so much that the Tribune reported on data that ended up being wrong, that's not their fault. The issue is that they used the wrong data to post countless editorials and think pieces about how to "fix" things (a nice list of such articles). They even went as far as treating the term "Illinois Exodus" as a proper noun.

As you know, editorials are not the same as simply reporting the news. The conservative-lean of their editorial board used the wrong data to push their preferred political solutions FOR YEARS. Do you think that they will re-evaluate, retract, or fix any of those old articles now that the data they were based on have been proven false?

If you've built an entire identity on "taxes are so high it's causing everyone to flee", but the data actually shows the population is pretty flat, it's a sign you may have been wrong in your analysis of causes. Said another way, if the population loss isn't as bad as they hyped, then maybe the tax issue also isn't as bad as they've hyped? If it turns out the population loss was entirely in downstate areas, maybe Chicago isn't the problem the Tribune wants us to believe? These are all questions an honest assessment would ask. Do you think John Cass is asking himself those questions?

^ Yes, they used wrong data to push a solution that they prefer. I will grant that they will need to reevaluate to some degree.

However, although the degree of the problem ended up being wrong, the actual problem is not. Not by a long shot.

And in the midst of celebrating that “hey we didn’t lose 250,000 we only lost 20,000!” I worry that people will miss out on the more insidious problem plaguing this State and that could be dangerous.

The fact of the matter is, we are still losing people—not an easy feat—while the rest of the nation is growing. “Blue” and “Red” States alike. Cold and warm weather States alike. This is a huge problem for Illinois. And even if most of the losses are downstate, that does not serve as consolation. Other States probably have shrinking rural areas, so why are they still growing (by a lot! Look at New York) while we aren’t. Why can’t Chicagoland prop up the State the way other metros are propping up theirs?

If the Census actually showed that earlier counts were completely off and that the State had actually gained hundreds of thousands of people, and hence performed similarly to other States like ours, I would expect the Tribune to post a recant of all of their earlier “Exodus from Illinois” articles.

However, in relative terms what is happening to Illinois is still dreadfully bad. So I don’t blame the Tribune for still sounding the alarm. As a huge booster of Chicago and somebody who wants the region to thrive, we need to do better than this.. If I were on the Tribune’s editorial board, I would be singing the same tune as they currently are.

Nobody is celebrating a loss, at all. Perhaps you should read the posts more objectively. A loss is bad no matter what. All people are saying is that outside of 1 piece of commentary now (which doesn't make a trend), there is barely any accountability on the part of a newspaper to say "this is bad, but not as bad as we or anyone else expected while we wrote many articles about it."

They didn't use the wrong data either. It's the only population data available which gives any view into these things. You can't blame the Tribune at all for that, and I don't even blame them for pushing the "exodus " narrative. However, almost doubling down as if the 50k to 80k loss per year is still a fact, after the Census reported a figure almost 14X less, is disingenuous and pretty shoddy.. As journalists they should be saying "it's not nearly as bad as expected but it's still not good."

By the way, I subscribe to the online version of the Tribune. I don't think they are terrible, but they do give unequal "front page" press to various things that are doom and gloom. Usually buried down is anything ever to celebrate. And while bad news sells, and you never want to bury it, not having some sort of balance is not good. People see these things and it plays a psychological role on how they perceive their city/region. You may live on a street in Chicago, or a suburb, that never sees any issues but if the news you consume is constantly bad then it will play a role in how you actually perceive everything. I actually have friends in Chicago who subscribe to it, live in areas that don't really see these types of bad issues, but it has made them afraid of so much even though their real life experience has never had anything bad happen nor witness itz and they're all very gainfully employed.. And the Tribune, as one of the largest newspapers in the country, gets its news stories picked up much further than the Chicago region. These play a massive role in so much more than people realize.

Anyway, my own theory on this has to do with last Census. All indications are that the city population was very undercounted. I believe some people said by even as much as 100k or 200k people. It is very possible 250K people left Illinois but doesn't look like it due to undercounting in 2010. We'll probably never know for sure though.

Maybe the Tribune and other local news sources are part of the problem. That's what I think many of us are arguing. They are making the situation worse by continually reporting doom and gloom. Plus, downstaters mop up this information. They see "Illinois Exodus" and go running for the hills. I doubt the losses in population came from Chicagoland, it had to have been downstate (although you never know). To be fair, most of downstate has little to no economic investment or growth. But it certainly doesn't help that many people outside and inside Illinois think it's a shit hole with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing every day and that it'll become the next Detroit or something like that. Local news is making this problem worse, not better. It's not helping, and that should be an irrefutable fact.

I know that the idea of a "cycle" is entirely arbitrary, but what should we consider to be the start of a new cycle in the 2020s? Personally, I'd say anything starting construction after the start of the pandemic (March 2020) should count. So these three buildings would be the only ones over 300' starting construction in the past year of this cycle. That's pretty crazy.

it makes sense on a certain level.

i mean, the pandemic kind of changed everything everywhere.

decades in the future we may even come to look back at it as a "pre-war / post-war" kind of event.

^ Interesting

Pre-Covid and post-Covid

My feeling on this keeps going back and forth. I worry about the demand for city living, but ultimately I think the city’s amenities will win out and this will end up being more of a hiccup.

Check out the Economy thread where Chicago Business Journal is reporting that office demand has already returned to pre-pandemic levels

Bear in mind that this probably doesn’t take into account significant rent reductions and other sweeteners office landlords are forced to offer to bring in tenants, paralleling what apartment landlords are having to do. So even though 95% occupancy looks great on paper and makes us feel that things are back to “normal”, the lowered rents and concessions DO have a negative impact on price valuations of all of these buildings, ultimately reducing the amount owners and developers can leverage against.

These lower rental comps ultimately make it harder for new projects to pencil out. It won’t be occupancy that will really tell us when we are back from the doldrums of the pandemic. It will be rent/SF

I think this is a spot on take. From End of WWII, end of the Cold War, to 9/11 ending peace/prosperity of the 90s, now Covid will mark the turning point into I believe a greater focus on domestic issues like civil unrest and political extremism, and an increasing focus on a emboldened China.

With the price trends consisting of dropping prices in the cities and rising in the suburbs, I wonder if there will actually be a 'boomerang' effect where people starting migrating back into the cities to avoid the huge price jumps in the suburbs...

Of course a loss of 20k people is better than a loss of 250k people. But only 2 other states in the country lost population and every state that borders Illinois is growing. Something is very wrong with our state. There is nothing to celebrate with this census. It's just not as bad as we thought.