The Ever Growing Downtown Chicago (Manhattan, Franklin: apartments, how much, vacation home)

[Dream Chaser]

Downtown Chicago the best downtown in America and best skyline in the world. In the past year I been paying attention the developments in the city and there's something always being built in downtown. As everyone know the downtown area can be ambiguous in whats downtown and what's not. In my perspective River North,Streetville,Gold Coast,Loop,South Loop is downtown.Also the newest neighborhood Lakeshore East. Downtown still growing and hasn't reached its peak where as its built out and neighborhoods have its own identity. Similar to Manhattan but the only difference New York is older , had more time to build.My question is what to you see downtown Chicago as a whole in the next ten years or even the next few decades ?

[Vlajos]

I see more office towers and apartment towers over the coming decades.

[Josef K.]

The influx of people living downtown really stands out. If you look at the 2010 Census demographic maps, you'll see that some census tracts in the downtown area boosted their population by 200-300% in the last 10 years. Contrast these astonishing figures with the depopulation on the South and West Sides, with many neighborhoods losing 20-30% of their people.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Josef K.

The influx of people living downtown really stands out. If you look at the 2010 Census demographic maps, you'll see that some census tracts in the downtown area boosted their population by 200-300% in the last 10 years. Contrast these astonishing figures with the depopulation on the South and West Sides, with many neighborhoods losing 20-30% of their people.

Some south side census tracts lost 100% of the population.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Some south side census tracts lost 100% of the population.

I think if the Census could have, they'd have claimed some tracts lost over 100% of their people.

[Chicago60614]

The construction and building now is fun to watch, but I sure miss 5 years ago when you could see well over a dozen buildings going up at all times.

The downtown area did grow by 50,000 during the 2000's. I counted up the census tracts, and it went from around 55,000 to 105,000 in that time.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by valpoguy2

Interestingly, some of those places are losing population due to gentrification. When young professional singles or childless couples move into apartments formerly occupied by lower-income families of 4 or 5, population of the neighborhood decreases. It's not until later in gentrification when high rises replace those apartment buildings that the population increases.

Simple concept, I realize, but something I hadn't thought about in that way until seeing the map of 2000-2010 population shifts.

Yep. Chicago has less population than it used to, but the demographic shift of smaller families is responsible for the majority of that change. There are more households in Chicago today than there were during Chicago's peak population.

[Attrill]

I think downtown is just going to keep growing in the directions it already is, there's loads of land very close to the Loop that will be filled in. Many of those areas are also well served by public transit, all that's needed is demand and financing to get things rolling.

A couple good examples are River North and the West Loop. River North development is going to continue spreading into the areas around Cabrini Green and across the river to fill in the Eastern edges of West Town (along Grand, Chicago, and Milwaukee). West Loop development will continue out to the United Center.

Originally Posted by emathias

I think if the Census could have, they'd have claimed some tracts lost over 100% of their people.

They did! Tracts 1531 and 1569 (Robert Taylor Homes) lost 100% of their population. Having seen that land since they tore down the highrises I think it's an accurate count.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Attrill

...
A couple good examples are River North and the West Loop. River North development is going to continue spreading into the areas around Cabrini Green and across the river to fill in the Eastern edges of West Town (along Grand, Chicago, and Milwaukee). West Loop development will continue out to the United Center.

They did! Tracts 1531 and 1569 (Robert Taylor Homes) lost 100% of their population. Having seen that land since they tore down the highrises I think it's an accurate count.

I live in River North. My tract gained about 66% and there's still plenty of spaces to add more residences - we could probably grow by about 66% by 2020.

Considering how much was lost from Cabrini Green, it's pretty amazing that the Near North community area as a whole managed to gain 10% since 2010 despite losing all those public housing residents. There aren't many poor residents left to lose in the Near North area, so I think in 2020, we may well see an even bigger jump. Also, whatever caused the Gold Coast to lose people seems like it must have been a temporary thing and may well stop or even reverse. There's just over 80,000 people now - if it adds as many as it did over the last 10 years and doesn't lose from the groups it lost from, we stand a real chance of hitting 100,000 just in Near North (the community area, which includes River North, Streeterville, the Gold Coast, parts of Old Town, Michigan Ave, etc) by 2020. There's a minimum of 2300 units under construction right now, plus at least 750 that I think were completed recently after the census. If those have 80% occupancy by residents (as opposed to vacation homes, etc), and a 1.5 occupancy ratio that's the average now, that's at least 3,600 more people just from major buildings in the past 2 years. Extrapolate that out to include the next eight years plus smaller buildings that don't show up in lists and it's totally plausible that we hit 100,000 by 2020.

I'd really love to see all the empty lots along Franklin disappear in the same way the lots along Dearborn disappeared in the early 2000s.

[Josef K.]

Fascinating reading for urban junkies - a 3-part Straight Dope analysis of the census figures, "Where Everybody Went":

Straight Dope Chicago: Where everybody went