Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Most of Illinois’ cities are shrinking.
New data from the U.S. Census shows that 22 of Illinois’ 30 largest cities shrank in the 12 months ending last July. The shrinking population factors in new residents, meaning more people are leaving the state than moving in or being born.
Of the larger cities outside of Chicago, Bloomington, Quincy, Kankakee, Rockford, Peoria, Carbondale, Decatur, and Waukegan all dropped in population. The only larger cities in Central or Southern Illinois to gain population were Normal and Champaign. While Rock Island, Moline and East Moline shrank, Bettendorf and Davenport both grew.
Author and geographer Joel Kotkin said the cities across the nation with the most jobs are seeing the most growth.
“The growth cities are almost all in the inter-Mountain West and the Sun Belt,” he said. “It’s no coincidence that that’s where the fastest growing economies are.”
Illinois shares more than just the dubious honor of shrinking states such as New York and California. Kotkin said Illinois has the regulatory mind of a coastal city without the coast, and it can’t be ignored when looking at migration patterns.
“Illinois is California and New York in a regulatory and tax environment, but it’s not New York and it’s not California,” he said. “Illinois is uniquely screwed up.”
A previous report showed that the entire state’s population shrank by more than 37,000 people in the same time period. That’s more than the population of Pekin and it’s surrounding villages in one year.
Chicago was the only major city in the nation to shrink, losing more than 8,000 people last year.
“If you are the only big city that isn’t gaining, something’s wrong,” Kotkin said.
While Kotkin thinks that many of the baby boomers from large Illinois cities are moving to more rural areas to avoid the chaos, more of the state’s small towns have shrunk rather than grown in the measured Census period.
