[OhioGuy]

We’re #3: Has the DC-Baltimore region’s population surpassed Chicago’s?
Greater Greater Washington
DEMOGRAPHICS By Payton Chung (Editorial Board) October 4, 20187

Greater Washington may already be the country's third-most-populous region, according to new population projections from the Census Bureau. Under the bureau's broadest definition of a metropolitan area, called a "Combined Statistical Area," the Washington-Baltimore area was just shy of the Chicago region as of July 2017. Continued growth here means that this region's population may have recently surpassed Chicago's.

Second City could become fifth

Chicago has long been known as "the second city," a nickname popularized by a snarky book written in 1952 — ironically, just as its 70-year reign as the nation's second most populous city was ending. The exploding population of metro Los Angeles pushed it to third by 1960, where it has remained ever since. Yet slackening international immigration and continuing domestic out-migration from the Midwest have slowed overall population growth.

The new Census estimates put greater Washington's population as of July 1, 2017 at 9,764,315, and Chicagoland's population at 9,901,711. Yet the estimates show Chicagoland's population falling slightly each year since 2014, while greater Washington has added 70,000-80,000 residents per year. If these estimates are correct and if those trends continued, greater Washington's population would have surpassed Chicagoland's in August of 2018.

Chicago could fall further down the league tables by the 2020 Census. The San Francisco Bay Area, known in Census nomenclature as the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA, was recently expanded to incorporate Modesto and Merced, two cities in the Central Valley that send many commuters into Silicon Valley.