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Originally Posted by marothisu
^ Yep, to be honest - it might not be so different (but maybe at a smaller scale) than what happened years ago in NYC or maybe San Francisco. More and more of that blue collar/industrial past is stripped away and white collar takes over. I'm not so sure that's happening in places like Dallas. My research shows that while Dallas is gaining a lot of people, the types of people it's gaining are not the same as what Chicago is. On average, the people moving to Dallas appear to be less educated than what Chicago is getting. And it might make sense considering some of the people who have moved and are moving from the south side are ending up in places like Dallas.
I think that most people don't really understand cities at the base of them - they think that population is the only health statistic that matters but in reality there's a lot of other things at play. They also think that if your population is stagnant that literally nobody is moving there which is complete non sense. In a big city that is especially an important economic center, there's always people coming and going no matter what the net change is.
In Chicago's case, it requires digging deeper than I think most people are not willing to do. With journalism hitting a new high of being lazy in the last handful of years, it's no wonder. Also, negative news sells when that's all there appears to be which is the case here.
A lot of people in Chicago even don't know what's happening in their back yard because they now listen too much to the media without experiencing first hand various things. Even the rhetoric about how Chicago lost 200K people between 2000 and 2010 is wrong. It lost 200K people, at least estimated, between 2000 and 2004 as I've shown (which is crazy). It's been stagnant in population since 2005 - not 2010 which most people think only because they don't know about the Census's estimates from 2005 to 2009.
The city gained more 6+ figure earning households than anywhere except for LA and NYC. That may seem obvious since it's the 3rd largest city, but when your population barely went up yet you're out gaining cities in this income category that out gained you by 100K - 200K total people it shows there's a TON that the lazy journalists of the world are frankly too dumb/lazy to find out and look into because they've also bought into this 100% negative narrative.
I think places like the south side and west side are imperative if the city wants to stop its negative press and turn it more positive. Areas like downtown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, north side and parts of south side are doing well - the ones around Englewood - not at all. Luckily the homicides are down compared to the last few years (down around 26% for the first two months of the year) but still need more work to do.
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You took the words from my mouth.
I don't think the city/region needs to post a population increase to prove that it's a great place. It would definitely help though
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Despite the narrative, Chicago's economy is still light-years ahead of most that would be considered "booming". I do think that Chicago is experiencing a lot of what New York went through in the 80s and early 90s. How it plays out for us is TBD.
Based on current trends, I think Chicago will quietly continue to add to its educated, high income population while the hollowing out of high-crime, low income neighborhoods continues. We've seen conflicting reports on neighborhoods like Austin. They're shown to have grown one year and shrank the next. At some point it'll stabilize. My assumption is sooner than later. At that point, we'll start seeing modest gains (1-3%). Based on data, trends, and personal theories, I don't think it's unrealistic to expect the area to be recognized as a top performer in the coming years. People were writing NYC's obituary for basically the second half of the 20th century and look at the city now...
To be fair, I don't think Chicago has anywhere near the problems NYC did in the 70s/80s. I think Obama's time in the oval office made Chicago a target of the right and that narrative will take years to shake. I do think the tune on southern metros is changing as more and more people become aware of the types of jobs that are offered in these areas. So many people are under the assumption that they can show up in Dallas, have a job offer with $75k/yr on the table and a 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom, 6,000 square foot McMansion for $200,000 ready to welcome them. The world doesn't work like that, and that has become clearer to more and more families.
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