Pete Saunders

I looked at 3 levels of metro Chicago data - Chicago alone, Cook County (which includes Chicago and is a decent proxy for inner suburbia here), and the metro area in total. I looked at ACS data at each level from 2005-17. 2/

Overall, Chicago growth at each level is flat to declining. From 2005-17, city alone grew just 0.5%, the county 0.1%, the whole metro area 2.8%. Not good. 3/

Then I looked at the three levels individually, excising out areas. City by itself, suburban Cook County w/o Chicago, and metro area without Cook County. 4/

Still not good. From 2005-17 the city grew 0.5%, the county w/o Chicago *declined* by 0.4%, and the metro area w/o Cook County grew 6.3%. In other words, meh. 5/

I decided to apply the same approach to young adults, defined here as the 25-39 age cohort. Things change dramatically. Between 2005-17, Chicago's 25-39 age cohort grew 15.7%. Cook w/o Chicago it fell -7.2%, and metro w/o Cook it fell -5.9%. Amazing. 6/

Let's stop to ponder that before I move on. There's a demographic transformation underway in Chicagoland. Young adults are choosing Chicago. The declines elsewhere suggests the metro area is losing children, middle age and elderly people. 7/

Then I sorted the data by educational attainment and the differences are phenomenal. From 2005-17, Chicago's population of 25-44 young adults with a bachelors+ grew 42.0%! Cook County w/o Chicago grew 5.4%, metro area w/o Cook fell -2.1%. 8/

It's time to start thinking off the future implications of the demographic shift in Chicago. The city is becoming younger and better educated. The suburbs are becoming older and less educated. 9/

Oh yeah: Chicago's share of 25-44 yo w/ degrees jumped from 18.5% in 2005 to 24.1% in 2017. Cook w/o Chicago fell from 22.2% to 15.5%. Metro area w/o Cook fell from 21.7% to 14.9%. 10/