Quote:
Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop
^ Chicago did not lose population in the last decade!
Low bar.....but at least got over it.
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This is fantastic news since there has been a lot of fear-mongering in the past 10 years about how Chicago was becoming the next Detroit, which is obviously silly.
While it would be nice to see Chicago and the collar counties grow at a faster pace, we're not seeing the mass exodus that some were fretting over.
The rest of Illinois is a different story. Champaign/Urbana and Bloomington/Normal are the only two MSAs outside of the Chicago MSA that don't appear to be declining, and Bloomington/Normal only saw a .8% increase. The Metro East, Peoria, Springfield, Rockford, Decatur, Danville etc. are all really struggling. If Illinois wants to buck the trend of population losses then these MSAs need to do a better job of attracting/retaining people.
Rural counties are declining across the country, so that's not a big surprise. You can see that most rural counties across the Midwest are declining in terms of population. The difference in the states that surround Illinois is that the major population centers are growing at a healthy rate and more than offset the declines throughout their states, however.