Tag Archives: Chicago

Was Chicago still building “too much” in 2016?

A year ago, I put up a post in which I pointed out that, given Chicago’s population losses, there seemed to be an enormous amount of building in the Chicago urban area, or at least an enormous amount of building-permit filing. No other American … Continue reading

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Chicago loses—and gains—population

According to a report that the Census Bureau posted a couple of days ago, Chicago has been continuing to lose population. The city’s estimated population in 2016 was 2,704,958. In 2015 it had been 2,713,596. Chicago is the only city among … Continue reading

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Fantasy transit in Chicago: a proposal

Building urban rail lines has always been expensive, and one of the consequences of this is that many more lines have been proposed than built. The shelves of Northwestern University’s excellent Transportation Library, for example, contain approximately 75 books or reports … Continue reading

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The recent geography of gentrification in Chicago

There is a widespread sense that some parts of Chicago are gentrifying at a rapid pace. Rising rents in many neighborhoods have been cited as support for this view. I downloaded and mapped data from the recently released 2011/2015 American … Continue reading

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Change in population by “race” and Hispanic status, Chicago area, 2010-2011/2015

The Census Bureau released the 2011/2015 American Community Survey (ACS) tract-level data this week. I’ve used these data to map tract-level ethnic changes between 2010 and 2011/2015 for the Chicago area. These maps are comparable to the 2000-2010, 1990-2000, and … Continue reading

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Is Chicago building too much?

Even though its population is stable or declining, Chicago has been building a great deal. Figures from the Census Bureau suggest that this is indeed an odd situation. Here’s a chart showing the relationship between residential building permits issued in … Continue reading

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McDonald’s is not moving to downtown Chicago

Newspaper headlines have claimed that McDonald’s is moving its headquarters from suburban Oak Brook to “downtown Chicago.” It isn’t. The move (if it happens) would be to the Harpo Studios site, which is at 1058 West Washington Boulevard. This is … Continue reading

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Apartment buildings on arterials in Chicago

There has been a large amount of infill residential construction in Chicago in recent years despite the city’s static or declining population. Most of this building has occurred in prosperous neighborhoods on the North Side or close to downtown. “Urbanist” observers have … Continue reading

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Neighborhood types in Chicago, 2010

The maps below present a classification of Chicago’s residential census tracts based on multivariate analysis. This approach (sometimes called social area analysis or factorial ecology in geography and sociology) is often used to classify small areas in cities. The ten neighborhood types identified … Continue reading

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The extreme high density of the central portions of the New York area

Sprawl supporters like Wendell Cox and Robert Bruegmann (and many other writers) have gleefully pointed out the Census Bureau’s somewhat counterintuitive claim that the Los Angeles urban area is denser than New York’s. Anyone familiar with Los Angeles and New York would understand that … Continue reading

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