Analysis from WBEZ shows more Chicago suburbs have a majority of nonwhite residents:

Skokie is one of more than thirty Chicago-area suburbs that have shifted from majority-white communities to majority non-white ones in the past two decades, according to a WBEZ analysis of demographic data for nearly 300 suburbs in Cook County and the five collar counties from 2005 to 2024…

Between 2015 and 2024, 18 suburbs flipped from majority-white to majority non-white, up from 12 during the prior 10-year period spanning 2005 through 2014.

Many suburbs today are no longer the white, middle-class enclaves of the mid-20th century, said Willow Lung, an associate professor of urban studies and planning and director of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network at the University of Maryland…

Overall, an increase of more than 600,000 nonwhite suburban residents over the last two decades completely offset the region’s loss of white suburban residents.

This is part of a nationwide trend where suburbs are increasingly diverse by race, ethnicity, and social class.

At the same time, the final paragraph cited above hints at another change; white suburbanites in the Chicago region leaving for elsewhere. What happens then in these suburbs as populations change? The article describes broad patterns but there are likely also interesting stories of what communities have become as their residents change. This could affect how a community sees itself, amid other possible reactions.

Will these patterns continue in the coming years in the Chicago region with more suburbs becoming majority non-white? And will white residents continue to leave for other suburbs or move out of the region all together? If both continue, how long until the image of “white, middle-class enclaves” of suburbia is no longer common?