The Census Bureau released the 2014/2018 American Community Survey (ACS) tract-level data last December, and I’m afraid I’ve been a little slow to download and analyze any of the numbers. One reason is that I didn’t think that there would be much difference between the 2014/2018 data and those for 2013/2017. I don’t know exactly how the Census Bureau operates, but I suspect that each new ACS data set involves discarding one year’s numbers and adding figures for the new year. Thus, four-fifths of the data in a new edition of ACS should be exactly the same as in the previous edition, and, when nothing very distinctive happens in either the first or last year of the six-year period covered by two succeeding ACS releases, you wouldn’t expect the numbers in the two releases to be very different. A close look at the 2014/2018 data suggests I was right. Maps showing changes from 2010 to 2014/2018 look very much like those showing changes from 2010 to 2013/2017. But there are a few subtle differences that I’ve highlighted in the text below.
These maps are comparable to the 2000-2010, 1990-2000, and 1980-1990 maps that I made while working at the University of Chicago Library’s Map Collection and to the 2010-2013/2017, 2010-2012/2016, and 2010-2011/2015 maps that I put on this blog in 2019, 2018, and 2017. I’m guilty of using some of the same prose on this post that I did in previous years, modified where appropriate.
Note the following:
[1] ACS data are for five-year periods, not single years. These maps show changes between April 1, 2010, and the 2014/2018 period.
[2] ACS data are not as accurate as decennial census data or as the long-form data that they replace. They are based on a sample, and it’s a much smaller sample than was used to compile the long-form data. The margins of error can be huge, especially for smaller numbers. Thus, at the tract level, these data are at best only rough approximations. The sample sizes are large enough so that general trends should be meaningful, but it’s perhaps best not to pay too much attention to the figures for individual census tracts.
[3] The “race” data for non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic African-Americans, and non-Hispanic Asians and Pacific Islanders include only people who classified themselves as being of a single race. This covers the overwhelming majority of respondents. It’s possible, however, that including people who identified themselves as being “multiracial” would have affected the results substantially for a few tracts in the city of Chicago. I’m not sure that there’s any unambiguously correct way to apportion these data, however.
[4] The boundary of the city of Chicago is shown on these maps by a heavy black line. Freeways are shown in blue. Tract boundaries are shown in dark gray on the vicinity maps. The location of dots within tracts is random.
Some general conclusions:
The Chicago area gained very few if any people between 2010 and 2014/2018, but there were some noticeable changes in the distribution of its population by “race” and Hispanic/Latinx status. Most distributional shifts continued those of earlier decades, but there were some subtle changes as well.
[1] There continued to be a substantial increase in the number of non-Hispanic white people in the city of Chicago, especially in the area around the Loop and on the North and Northwest Sides. There was also a modest influx of non-Hispanic whites in Pilsen, eastern Humboldt Park, western Austin, and Bronzeville. Older, formerly mostly white inner suburbs (as well as some “bungalow belt” districts in the outer city) continued to lose some of their white population. There was also an increase in white population in certain outer suburbs despite the fact that there wasn’t that much outer-suburb greenfield construction in this post-recession period.
[2] Problem-ridden African-American neighborhoods like Englewood continued to lose population. Healthier, mostly African-American neighborhoods like Bronzeville continued to gain population (including some non-African-American population). There was also a gain in African-American population in many suburban areas, especially south of Chicago but elsewhere as well. There have also been African-American gains here and there in the city of Chicago, for example, in Rogers Park and in the Southwest Side “bungalow belt.” Many of the areas into which African-Americans have been moving are majority white. Chicago continues, very slowly, to desegregate.
[3] Asian(-American) population declined in some of the Far North Side enclaves where Asians had concentrated in earlier decades, but it increased in many other tracts not far away. There was a continued growth of Asian population near the Loop and west of Chinatown—in Bridgeport and McKinley Park, for example—and in many suburban areas, especially in the West and Northwest. Except for Chinatown, no part of the Chicago area is nearly all Asian. Middle-class and wealthy Asians tend increasingly to live among white people of comparable economic status, with some preference for the inner parts of the region.
[4] Some traditionally Hispanic neighborhoods—Little Village, for example—lost Hispanic population, as did a few gentrifying North Side neighborhoods—Logan Square and parts of West Town, for example. But Hispanic population grew substantially in a great many other places, for example, further north and west on the North Side, further west on the South Side, and throughout the suburbs. There was also apparently an influx of Hispanics in many of the outer-city and inner-suburban tracts where non-Hispanic white population was down.
Even more clearly than a year ago, it’s possible to summarize these maps by saying that white people, who traditionally were more inclined to flee to the suburbs than any other group, are favoring the city, while minority groups, historically disposed (or forced) to take up inner-city residence, are increasingly moving outward. This radical change in the character of Chicago urbanism is not new. It goes back for thirty and more years and shows no signs of changing.
Here’s a set of maps of Chicago and vicinity:
And here’s a set of maps of the Chicago region:
(Vicinity maps corrected on May 27.)