This is really the case everywhere. There’s a reason Manhattan’s population is below its historical peak despite the built environment being vastly more developed.

They should have just labelled it Ebbets Field. Difference being that Wrigley still exists.

Two or three years late to the discussion but why is the North Side one "city"? The semi-suburban neighborhoods of the NW seem very different than the lakefront neighborhoods.

They are different, but this map is trying to illustrate population trends not form.

Central Area - Growth, High-Rise

North- Growth, Established wealthy or middle-class

South Lakefront - Growth, Emerging middle-class

Southwest - Growth, Hispanic working-class

Far Southwest - Stable, middle-class

Far West - Loss, Poverty but stabilizing

Far South - Loss, Poverty and abandonment

It is interesting how the actual census results largely confirmed the general suppositions of this article from 2.5 years ago.

Considering Chicago was predicted to have shrunk, but actually grew, it must have been off somewhere.

i don't know where the population #s on the map in the first post of this thread came from. if you total them all up, you get a net gain of 19,137 people, yet the last CB estimate in 2019 had the city losing ~20K, so something isn't adding up there.

perhaps the author, ed zotti, was using some other source for his population figures?

in any event, the city did end up gaining ~50K residents last decade, and the patterns of where, and the degree to which, the growth/loss occurred generally line up with what was outlined in that map. that was really my only point.

the vast majority of chicago actually faired pretty well last decade on the population front (stable to growing), with a still strongly booming central area, but a still hollowing-out far southside.

in fact, if you remove the two far southside regions on the map below, the rest of the city of chicago actually grew by 85,891 people (+3.9%), which would be very respectable city growth for an old rustbelter, especially one as large as chicago.

but the far southside of the city is still adrift in some pretty troubled waters.




https://i.postimg.cc/qMsdcXqQ/southside-map.png


area ------------------------ 2010 ------ 2020 ----- growth

inner southeast side ---- 226,241 --- 239,282 --- +13,041 (+5.8%)

inner southwest side --- 355,247 --- 359,941 --- +4,694 (+1.3%)

far southeast side ------ 224,793 --- 208,941 --- -15,852 (-7.1%)

far southwest side ------ 244,147 --- 224,898 --- -19,249 (-7.9%)

TOTAL ------------- 1,050,428 --- 1,033,062 --- -17,366 (-1.7%)

How would you subdivide the 77 community areas by section or "side"?