Scaremongers have been honking at a fever pitch ever since the U.S. Census Bureau released data in March showing a second year of declining population for the Chicago area. “Depopulation is killing this city, and it’s all self-inflicted,” tweeted Dominic Lynch, a contributor to Chicagoly. Curbed Chicago posted an open thread asking readers to comment on whether they planned to bolt, too. And an op-ed in the Tribune by a guest columnist went so far as to suggest the city should annex inner-ring suburbs to boost its slumping tax base.
Meanwhile, politicians and advocates clamored to assign blame for the decline to pet causes. Governor Bruce Rauner excoriated Democrats, of course: Taxes are too high, schools are too crummy, and politicians serve for too long, he said through a spokesperson. The nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety attributed the drop to violence. Twitter user @jetdog asked: “Is this because President Trump says it’s a horrible place?”
Well, not so fast. “It’s all overplayed,” says Rob Paral, a public policy analyst known as the Chicago Data Guy. “In a major city of 2.7 million people, the decline is really quite small. The sky is not falling.” This much is true: The Chicago metro area lost 19,570 people in 2016, according to Census Bureau estimates—the largest drop of any metro area in the country. And yes, it’s the second straight year of decline. But Paral reminds us that this is out of a whopping 9.5 million residents—a mere 0.2 percent dip. He calls the Chicago area a “huge chessboard” with pieces constantly moving on and off it.
So where the headlines imply a gush, analysts see a trickle. And as for the reasons behind the drop? They’re more complicated than the knee-jerk reactions suggest. “The tax argument is really a canard,” Paral says. “Kansas has slashed taxes, and they are losing population.” And while many armchair quarterbacks rushed to blame the exodus on last year’s surge in murders, it’s too soon for people to have picked up their lives in response to that. Things get interesting—and alarming—when you look at who is leaving. “The white population is not falling, and the Latino and Asian populations are slightly growing,” says Paral. “The big factor that is altering Chicago’s population is the change among blacks.”
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