[Bonsai Tree]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ 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.

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.