Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ So black population dropped by 84k from 2010-2020
It had dropped by 180k from 2000-2010. So black flight continues to slow down.
Just for kicks, if there were no black flight at all from 2010-2020, Chicago’s population now would be around 2.83 million people. That would be a much more respectable growth rate of 5%
If, from 2000-2020 Chicago had not lost ANY black residents, our current population would be 3.01 million, if everything else were equal. That would be a modest but not too shabby 3.9% growth rate in a cold weather, rustbelt city that is gentrifying like crazy.
So everything that is holding down Chicago’s growth rate has to do with black flight. Every single other group is growing. And black flight is slowing down, not speeding up, so that bodes well. I do hope that recent upticks in murders from 2020-present don’t cause black flight to re-accelerate, though...
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I’d like to add to this post by pointing out that if you removed black population loss from 2000-2020 you get a 3.9% growth rate, and if you removed it JUST from 2010-2020 you get a 5% growth rate.
Thinking about that further, that means that the focus on black population loss is increasingly sharpening as the biggest factor hampering the city’s growth engine. It was much less clear prior to 2010, when other factors were also at play.
If growth rates go WAY up when you remove the ‘performance’ of a single demographic group, you can say that that demographic group is having a substantial impact on overall numbers.
So to summarize, 2 key things seem to be happening:
1. Black flight slowed WAY down from 2010-2020 compared to the prior decade
2. Black flight, however slowed down, increasingly became the singular reason why Chicago grew slowly from 2010 onward, whereas it may have been a more blended picture prior to that