Chicago Population Sinks to 1920 Level

[wolverine]

^ I personally believe you will see alot more development in small-town downtowns. If I didn't live in the city, I wouldn't want to live in a suburb, but close to the "Main Street" in small city where you'll find historic buildings and small shops and cafes. One of the benefits of Chicago's northside neighborhoods, is that their business districts emulate small rural towns with 2-3 story structures and two lane avenues. For people that opt to move out, this could be alternative to big metro suburbs....although fortunately for big cities, this trend is decreasing and there's a growing market for large family condos.

[fryar]

It sounds like we're seeing a combination of a trend and temporary dislocation due to high unemployment.

[bartock]

What I'm taking from this is that there will likely be a similar "greater than expected" population loss when Detroit's figures come out.

[wolverine]

Chicago population breakdown


Not all that surprising. Explosive growth in areas close downtown. Steady growth on many parts of the Northside overall with either no growth or slight losses spread evenly. Some southside areas showing significant losses.

Losses are relatively concentrated, which is a good and bad thing. Good in that the problem isn't wide spread and a solution may be more manageable. Though bad for the residents that live in these neighborhoods, they have to deal with the worst of losses. A recent assessment of Chicago's neighborhood vacancies put the worst neighborhood at a whopping 25% vacant. 1/4 of the worst neighborhood is vacant land and vacant buildings. That's a pretty serious number.

[Brian1979]

You want to see a ghetto in Chicago just get off at 63rd Street off the Dan Ryan and go west.

[iheartthed]

Chicago loop population posts dramatic increase since 2000:

Chicago‘s Loop saw a 76% increase in inhabitants since 2000 and the Near South Side more than doubled in population over the same period [[even as the number of jobs downtown declined by 60,000).

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...nds-its-reach/

[wolverine]

^ Good and bad. Very bad if you are a growing business in an older building with owner's intentions of renovating to condos. There's been a couple news articles of businesses who were leasing 5-10 floors in some buildings and were trying to renew another 10 years on their lease only to be denied. Some building owners are trying to empty older office towers as quickly as possible for conversion.

The good news is the loop is diversifying....I guess. Wouldn't be my first choice place to live, but obviously people seem to like it. It will help the area become less of a daytime-only place and hopefully attract more nightlife. That will also be augmented with new downtown hotels opening, Already the $400 million renovation of a historic office building into a 600 room JW Marriott just opened this past fall.

BTW, "downtown" is the Chicago loop. But River North, Near North, and West Loop are quickly becoming office towers districts. Most people mistakingly consider the Magnificent Mile and Water Tower area to be downtown...but it isn't by the city's definitions despite all the commercial activity. With a massive office tower boom in these areas, it would be interesting to see where jobs are shifting and how they will grow. A recently released number shows that there will be 600,000 job openings this year within the city of Chicago. Even if loop vacancies fill up entirely, I doubt you'll see most of these downtown, but areas just outside of the loop where new office towers are proposed.

[illwill]

Most Chicagoans [[blacks & whites) were secretly pleased to hear of the population loss in the city...once they realized what sector of the city actually lost population. The reason being, most all of the 200,000 people who left the city were the section 8 project dwellers who were living in Chicago's infamous high-rises that were tore down over the past decade. They've been a burden on Chicago's growth forever and a majority of the people have not been placed back into the city. This was done purposely by the city leaders. Most have been placed either in the south suburbs or they moved down South.

[NorthEndere]

I keep seeing this meme all over the net. The project demolitions were but fraction of the city's loss. Chicago lost a hell of a lot of solid, working class families. Period.

[wolverine]

I keep seeing this meme all over the net. The project demolitions were but fraction of the city's loss. Chicago lost a hell of a lot of solid, working class families. Period.

It's definitely not all from public housing. Compare Englewood and Woodlawn to 2000 levels. You'll see a lot more vacancies today. The map shows exactly where those losses are from, and many dark red areas didn't contain all that many CHA buildings. Though the number is likely higher, we definitely know for sure that 15% of residents that left the city were from CHA buildings. It's difficult to play the blame game on the projects when those areas actually show net positive growth. Furthermore, the majority of vacancies seem to be single family homes. Not a good sign.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

http://realestate.msn.com/blogs/list...9f52&GT1=35006

And Philadelphia's population grows, go figure.

[iheartthed]

Furthermore, the majority of vacancies seem to be single family homes. Not a good sign.

Yeah, that's why I now expect the drop for Detroit to be at least as severe as Cleveland.

[old guy]

BTW, "downtown" is the Chicago loop. But River North, Near North, and West Loop are quickly becoming office towers districts.

Near north is becoming office towers? I'm not questioning whether you're right or wrong, I just haven't been up in that area for a long time and was curious. I always thought that would become dense, upscale residential. Love that part of the city.

[Bham1982]

The Census numbers show that Chicago is shrinking because of middle class population loss across all races. It likely has nothing to do with public housing demolition.

If you look at the 2010 data, you will see than Chicago lost nearly 60,000 whites. The white losses tend to be in middle class fringe neighborhoods in Northwest and Southwest Chicago. There are no projects in these neighborhoods.

The black losses were even greater, and the data show that the more stable, middle class black neighborhoods are losing population faster than the poor black neighborhoods. Most of the declining black neighborhoods have no projects.

As for project demolition, the Feds at HUD require that demolished housing units are replaced at a [[generally) one-to-one basis in the same municipality, so I doubt housing demolition is doing much to Chicago's population one way or the other.

And Chicago's public housing system isn't that big to begin with. Even if we demolished every public housing unit in the entire city, and forced 100% of the former residents to move to Georgia [[or wherever), it would only account for a fraction of the huge population loss in Chicago over the last 10 years. There's obviously something else going on.

BTW, I don't think there's any "Grand Plan" by Daley or whomever to relocate poor folks. Chicago public housing was taken over by the Feds in DC about 20 years ago [[because it was so poorly run), and most of the decision-making re. demolitions came from DC, not Chicago. The complexes had become so run-down that it was cheaper to replace than renovate.

[Bham1982]

Near north is becoming office towers? I'm not questioning whether you're right or wrong, I just haven't been up in that area for a long time and was curious. I always thought that would become dense, upscale residential. Love that part of the city.

Yeah, I didn't understand that post either. River North and Michigan Ave. are mostly residential, and I can't think of a single office tower under construction in that area. I'm there all the time on business [[and used to live there, but returned to Metro Detroit).

Downtown Chicago has a fairly high office vacancy rate, and job growth in Chicago has been relatively poor. They're still losing jobs in Chicagoland [[though they never hit the depths seen in 2009 Metro Detroit). I doubt that there will be any new downtown office buildings for many years.

As for why older Loop office buildings are being converted to residential, it's because of the relatively high office vacancy rate. Older buildings can't compete for tenants with the newer ones, so they convert to residential.