[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

now that we have the issues of west side boundaries sorted out, let's get back to the meat of this story: most neighborhood areas of chicago are no longer in population free-fall like they were last decade.

from 2000-2010, only the central area saw any population gain. the other 6 neighborhood divisions all lost people, cumulatively an across the board decline of 244,696 people!

and so far this decade, the central area is not only growing even faster than last, but 4 of the 6 neighborhood regions have turned the corner from population loss to population gain. and the west side, while still losing people, has radically slowed its population loss. it's really now just the far southside where chicago's rather extreme population loss continues unabated.

so far this decade, the 6 neighborhood regions have lost a cumulative 30,655 people, but that's almost entirely because of the unrelenting decline of the far southside. without the far southside, the other 5 neighborhood regions have actually gained 26,488 people so far this decade. quite a remarkable turnaround from the 147,567 people those 5 regions cumulatively lost last decade.

and when you add that gain of 26,488 to the central area's gain of 49,792, you get a respectable gain of 76,280, but the far southside's loss of 57,143 wipes the majority of that gain away. perhaps chicago will finally get over that hump in the next decade.


so the current demographic story of chicago really is a lot more nuanced than the oft recited "growing downtown & northside and declining bombed-out ghetto westside & southside".

The good news is, the far south side free fall appears to be slowing while the central area growth appears to be accelerating.