Tag Archives: Chicago region

The rise of the “mega-Loop” in downtown Chicago

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Crain’s Chicago Business discusses the activity taking place in Chicago’s Loop and the surrounding area, an area it now calls the “mega-Loop”:

This is the new economic engine of the metropolitan area and, increasingly, the rest of Illinois. And it has reached a critical mass, data suggest, enabling its growth to be self-perpetuating, as more jobs downtown attract more residents to move nearby, which, in turn, becomes a magnet for more employers to join the inward migration.

The Chicago Loop long has been one of the world’s greatest job centers, of course. For much of its history, though, downtown emptied out after office hours. And as the city aged and its population declined, the suburbs rose to become the preferred home to generations of young families and the tollways became employment corridors of their own.

In recent years, those trends have reversed. After decades of watching the suburbs boom (often at the city’s expense), Chicago now is outperforming the surrounding area by almost any measure—jobs, income, retail sales and residential property values, to name a few—despite the loss of 200,000 people in the 2010 census.

The city is so hot that this expanded downtown is adding residents faster than any other urban core in America, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

“In the year 2020, no matter how many condos are built or sold, Chicago is likely to be a nest of center-city affluence unequaled in size—or even approached—by anyplace in America,” journalist Alan Ehrenhalt writes in “The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City.”…

There’s no question, however, that the mega-Loop is benefiting from a back-to-the-city movement that is reviving urban centers elsewhere in the U.S. In Chicago, the trend appears to be sustainable. “This is a pattern that has developed for the last 30 years, and it has only strengthened,” says Columbia University sociologist Saskia Sassen, author of “The Global City.”

These are some big claims and it will take some years to see how the longer trend plays out. As the article notes, there are a lot of factors at work including a global economy, a variety of serious social issues in Chicago, and growth patterns in the Chicago region where the outer collar counties are gaining population.

If the glitzy downtowns continue to grow as do the more exurban areas, perhaps it is the closer suburbs that are left out. These suburbs were likely founded between the mid 1850s and 1960s and are long past the era of rapid suburban growth. While researchers have noted troubling trends among inner-ring suburbs, communities adjacent to big cities, this might extend further out as growth is centered on the downtown and at the fringes.

How can Lake County, Illinois be #9 on the list of “America’s Most Miserable Cities”?

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Forbes just put out their 2013 list of “America’s Most Miserable Cities.” Out of the top 20, there is one that is not like the others: Lake County, Illinois at #9. Here is the short description of why Lake County made the list:

The Chicago suburb is one of the richest counties in the U.S., as measured by per capita income. But home prices are down 29% over the past 5 years. Other drawbacks: long commutes and lousy weather.

There are numerous problems with this:

1. Calling an entire county a suburb is strange. Lake County is made up of dozens of suburbs which are quite varied. For example, look at quick overviews of Deerfield versus Grayslake versus Waukegan. Lumping them all together is silly and is one of the traps many people make when looking at the suburbs: they are not all the same kind of places.

2. How does a county end up on this list when the rest of the top 20 are cities? In terms of categories, a suburban county is not in the same category as a city. While there might be some identity in saying one is from “Lake County,” it is nowhere close to being a singular city.

3. Just glancing at this description and the top 20 cities on the list, I have to wonder how Lake County could even make the list. According to this list, Lake County is the 56th wealthiest county in the United States with a median household income of $74,266. Here is a bit more on the methodology:

We looked at the 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas and divisions in the U.S. to determine America’s Most Miserable Cities. The minimum population to be eligible was 259,000. We ranked each area on 9 factors, including average unemployment rate between 2010 and 2012; median commute times to work for 2011 based on U.S. Census data; violent crimes per capita from the FBI’s 2011 Uniform Crime Report.

We included three housing metrics: the change in median home prices between 2009 and 2012; foreclosure rates in 2012, as compiled by RealtyTrac; and property tax rates based on median real estate taxes paid and median home values in 2011 per the U.S. Census. We factored in income tax rates and the weather in each metro on factors relating to temperature, precipitation and humidity. The data metrics are weighted equally in the final scoring.

We tweaked the methodology in this year’s list in response to feedback from readers, dropping our rankings of both pro sports team success and political corruption, since both were based on regional, rather than city-specific data. We also added a new measure—net migration—which we see as a clear gauge of whether or not residents feel a community is worth living in.

If this methodology puts Lake County at #9, Forbes may want to revisit their criteria.

Daily Herald encourages new planning regarding housing in northwest Chicago suburbs

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Housing is a metropolitan issue that is often addressed community to community, if at all. The Daily Herald highlights recent efforts in the northwest Chicago suburbs:

In an era when housing development has slowed nearly to a halt, it can feel misguided to be talking about what kind of housing to build in a town and where to build it. But “Homes for a Changing Region” merits attention for a couple of reasons.

One, even the gravest cynic expects the economy will one day turn around and people again will be looking for comfortable homes in inviting communities. So, it’s best to begin preparing now for the types of homes they’ll be looking for.

Plus, the report — produced by the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the regional Metropolitan Planning Council, all with the support of the five communities involved — introduces some new concepts that can help towns be smarter in their development. For one, it encourages cooperation among towns whose development futures seem intrinsically linked. For another, it focuses on reality rather than whim — the needs of residents a town is likely to have in the future rather than of residents it has today or even that it might hope to attract. It envisions an environment in which developers respond to the identifiable marketing needs of particular towns, rather than towns responding to the marketing goals of particular developers.

It’s a worthwhile approach, emphasizing data and efficiency. And it’s about to be applied in another collection of local communities — Carpentersville, East Dundee, Elgin and West Dundee. There, as in the Northwest collaborative, people may find the language more cumbersome and less thrilling than, to make a timely comparison, counting off the stats of a superstar quarterback or comparing defenses of teams from distant towns in the NFL. But. the end result can certainly have a more direct and beneficial impact on their quality of life at home.

Housing is a pressing issue in the Chicago region, particularly since affordable housing is lacking in the city of Chicago. Add to that the trend of decades-long job growth in and movement to the suburbs and there is also a lack of affordable housing in many Chicago suburbs, particularly in wealthier communities. While the Illinois legislature tried to address this in the 2000s, not much has changed.

Even with these new planning efforts, it remains to be seen how much this changes local communities. It sounds like there is a certain number of suburbs in one particular area who are interested but they need more support, not just across suburbs and regional groups, but within their own communities as they go forward with new housing plans. What happens if the suburb of Buffalo Grove, village of just over 41,000 and a median household income of over $91,000 and a poverty rate of 2.9%, and this planning group decides a development of affordable housing needs to be located near an upper-end subdivision? I imagine suburbanites would like the idea of developers responding to needs but what happens if these goals don’t line up?

Decrease in young people in Illinois; how might suburbs be different with less children?

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The Chicago Tribune leads today with a story of demographic change in Illinois: along with some other states, Illinois has experienced a drop in its young population.

Demographers have long known that the baby boom of the 1950s was giving way to a baby bust nationwide. Now Illinois and the Chicago area are providing a vivid example of the trend: According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2000 to 2010, Illinois had a 6.2 percent drop in children under 10, among the biggest declines in the country.

The impact is being felt in declining school enrollments and refashioned youth programs, officials say. In coming years, it will be felt in a workforce with fewer workers to replace retirees and help replenish pension coffers.

Changes in the youth population are especially pronounced in Chicago, which lost one-fifth of its young residents, particularly along parts of the lakefront, in Hispanic neighborhoods and in places where public housing high-rises once stood. But the trend is also under way in suburbs in Cook and DuPage counties…

Even suburbs such as Naperville and Winnetka — traditionally magnets for families — saw relatively sharp declines in their populations of children.

The impact of this could last for quite a while. I’m most interested in the bits about suburban communities. Since the post-World War II suburban boom, suburbs have been generally regarded as the best setting for children. With more space and good schools, kids could be safe and experience the middle-class life. This image coincided with a baby boom where lots of young families, including those of military veterans who had returned from the war, moved to the suburbs. So how would suburbs be different without as many children?

To start, as the article suggests, this would have a big influence on school districts. Communities that once had to build multiple schools to keep up with new developments might now have to contract schools. What will happen to the old buildings? Might this lead to smaller school district budgets which could then lead to less money from property tax bills going to school districts? I imagine a number of suburban residents would be happy at the thought that schools would cost less. Even as communities like Naperville were expanding, some existing residents were pushing for fewer houses so that their tax bills wouldn’t increase.

Going beyond schools, this could lead to changes for other taxing bodies such as park districts and libraries. But, even more broadly, this could change the character of many suburbs. Without as many children, the main focus of suburbs might change from familialism to something else. One big trend in American life today is the rise of single-person households, which could also become the plurality in the suburbs. There have also been rumblings about older suburbanites whose kids are growing up or have already left the house wanting to move to denser areas. Neighborhoods and communities that once revolved around children and their activities would have to shift their focus elsewhere. Imagine a Chicago suburb that becomes known as a haven for the 50+ crowd. Or a suburb where young professionals have a hopping cultural and entertainment scene.

Highlights from the “Illinois’s 33%” poverty report

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A new report from the Social Impact Research Center, “Illinois’s 33%,”  looks at poverty in Illinois. Here are a few highlights:

1. Something I did not realize: the preamble to the Illinois Constitution mentions “eliminat[ing] poverty” (p.1).

“We, the People of the State of Illinois…in order to provide for the health, safety and welfare of the people; maintain a representative and orderly government; eliminate poverty and inequality; assure legal, social and economic justice; provide opportunity for the fullest development of the individual; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; and secure the blessings of freedom and liberty to ourselves and our posterity—do ordain and establish this Constitution for the State of Illinois.”

2. The report is not just about poverty; it is also about people in near-poverty. The income thresholds for this are here (p.5):

This methodology of measuring people with low incomes or near poverty seems to be growing. The Census reports the median household income in Illinois is $56,576.

3. There is definitely some geographic disparity in these figures. Here are the numbers for the Chicago region which clearly shows wealthier and less wealthy counties and Chicago neighborhoods (p.7):

I did not see any calls for metropolitan approaches to poverty. In the Chicago region, it would be difficult to deal with a particular problem, say affordable housing, in just Chicago or a few of its neighborhoods without cooperation and input from others in the region.

4. The report has more figures and possible solutions in five areas that could help people move out of poverty: employment, education, housing, health & nutrition, and assets (p.3-4, 15-17).

The danger of railroad crossing accidents in the Chicago region

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The Chicago region is a railroad hub. While this may be good for business, it is not great for accidents between trains, vehicles, and pedestrians. Here are figures on the number of accidents from recent years and what might be done to reduce them:

From 2006 through 2011 in the Chicago region, there were 641 collisions with trains involving vehicles or pedestrians, a Daily Herald analysis found. A total of 253 people in the six-county area died coming into contact with trains in that time period and an additional 267 were injured, according to Illinois Commerce Commission data…

A total of 9.5 million people live in Chicago and the suburbs, where nearly 500 freight and 700 Metra trains chug through daily. But the design of some crossings and stations makes that coexistence treacherous, expert Ian Savage explained.

Mid-platform pedestrian crossings at train stations, angled streets intersecting with tracks so drivers “can easily come around the gates,” and platforms transitioning into streets are everyday hazards, he said.

“Some of the designs of the stations are strange and bizarre,” said Savage, a Northwestern University economics and transportation professor. For example, “when you have the street merge with the platform, it signals to people that ‘you can just stroll around aimlessly.'”

As the article notes, there are a number of solutions to this problem. The most effective would be to limit the number of at-grade crossings, of which the Chicago region has many. Of course, this is an expensive option:

The ultimate protection comes in the form of grade separations — overpasses or underpasses that keep the public and railways apart. Chicago and some older communities such as Naperville boast such structures that were built decades ago.

But constructing a grade separation is an exorbitant proposition. One structure dedicated in Downers Grove this fall on the BNSF Railway cost about $60 million. Another planned for West Chicago at Roosevelt Road and the Union Pacific Railway will cost $26 million.

The solution to this is likely a long-term one since new devices cost both money and time. Communities that took care of some of this far in the past are quite fortunate. The article mentions underpasses in Naperville. The suburb has two underpasses, one at Washington Street and one at Mill Road. Both are nearly a century old and were probably easier to construct even then because both of the crossings are away from the downtown and denser areas, an issue for many suburban communities. For example, Wheaton has had multiple discussions in the past about an overpass or underpass in the downtown but such a structure would overwhelm the quaint core.

I wonder if one possible solution to this issue would be to run fewer trains through the denser areas of the Chicago region and route more along the outer edges. This has been an issue in recent years as regional planners and others have looked for ways to move freight through or around the region more quickly. What if this was also promoted as a safety issue?

Elgin-O’Hare highway project to take 12 years to complete

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I saw the news that the Elgin-O’Hare highway extension just received the final approval from the federal government. But, one piece of information in the story stunned me:

The action, which was expected, allows the Illinois Tollway to proceed with the $3.6 billion project, which will take an estimated 12 years to complete.

Twelve years? Chicagoans are used to a lot of construction but this seems like a really long time. Here is a brief schedule according to the Elgin O’Hare West Bypass FAQ page:

Construction of the Elgin O’Hare West Bypass project could be initiated by the Illinois Tollway as soon as 2013, and would extend through 2025. While the staging plan will be refined as the Tollway advances project design, the general sequencing described in the Tollway’s Move Illinois Program includes: widening of the existing Elgin-O’Hare expressway and upgrading the I-90/Elmhurst interchange to full access, followed by the extension of the Elgin O’Hare Expressway. When the Elgin O’Hare construction is complete construction would begin on the south leg of the west bypass, with the final piece being the north leg of the west bypass. The phasing of the improvements is intended to provide the most benefit to the public as early as possible while complementing other Tollway improvements on adjacent facilities such as I-90 and I-294.

In fact, this might be the best argument I have heard for constructing highways earlier rather than latter. In addition to costs which continue to grow over time, it can often be quicker to build when there is less development.

The issues involved in solving the railroad traffic bottleneck in Chicago

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The Chicago region is an important city for America’s railroad traffic but it is also a bottleneck:

Six of the nation’s seven biggest railroads pass through the city, a testament to Chicago’s economic might when the rail lines were laid from the 1800s on. Today, a quarter of all rail traffic in the nation touches Chicago. Nearly half of what is known as intermodal rail traffic, the big steel boxes that can be carried aboard ships, trains or trucks, roll by or through this city…

Now, federal, state, local and industry officials are completing the early stages of a $3.2 billion project to untangle Chicago’s rail system — not just for its residents, who suffer commuter train delays and long waits in their cars at grade crossings, but for the rest of the nation as well.

The program, called Create (an acronym for Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program), is intended to replace 25 rail intersections with overpasses and underpasses that will smooth the flow of traffic for the 1,300 freight and passenger trains that muscle through the city each day, and to separate tracks now shared by freight and passenger trains at critical spots. Fifty miles of new track will link yards and create a second east-west route across the city, building redundancy into the overburdened system.

Fourteen of the 70 projects have been completed so far, and 12 more are under way, including the $140 million “Englewood flyover,” or overpass.

This is a massive infrastructure issue involving a whole region. Some of the issues involved (several of which are pointed out by the article):

1. Paying for all of this. How much should the railroad industry itself chip in for this? We’ve also seen some of these issues with passenger lines. For example, the STAR Line would provide a circumferential commuter line between Joliet and O’Hare Airport but it has been on the drawing board for years without funding. And there hasn’t exactly been immediate funding for high speed rail in the Midwest region.

2. Geography: railroad traffic bunches in the area southwest of Lake Michigan. There is one way around this that railroad companies have been using now for some years: push facilities further out from the city to take advantage of more space. For example, Union Pacific built an intermodal facility in Rochelle, Illinois roughly 80 miles west of Chicago’s Loop. Additionally, there are large shipping facilities southwest of the city near the intersection of I-80 and I-55 (see CenterPoint Intermodal Center, “the largest master-planned inland port in North America,” see Union Pacific’s facility here) which could lead to the construction of a new interstate.

3. Lots of at-grade crossings in the Chicago region. These cause traffic issues for trains and cars. Plus, numerous commentators have pointed out the safety issues. Even when these crossings are fixed, they take a lot of time, can involve acquiring and utilizing pieces of land,  and limit car and pedestrian options in the meantime.

4. Tracks that are also used by commuter trains.

5. Suburban communities generally don’t want more railroad traffic. This was illustrated by the fight several years ago over whether Canadian National should be able to purchase and then run more freight trains along the Elgin, Joliet, and Eastern tracks. The suburbs which would see a reduction in traffic because more trains would be routed around the city were in favor while those along the railroad line were not. Thus, local governments often get involved in negotiations with the railroads and they have their own interests.

6. A public which is generally unaware of the importance of railroad lines to the American economy. Yes, railroad traffic may sometimes be inconvenient and noisy but a tremendous amount of traffic is involved.

This could be a great opportunity for regional cooperation.

New public relations campaign to convince Chicago area residents that congestion pricing is the way to go

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The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning launched a campaign today intended to raise support for congestion pricing on Chicago area highways:

Would driving a steady 55 mph the entire way be worth the price, say, of a latte, particularly on days when you are crunched for time?

Officials at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning think drivers will see value in a congestion-pricing plan that the agency is recommending be implemented on new highway lanes planned on six major existing and future roadways across the six-county area. Under congestion pricing, drivers who opt to use free-flowing express lanes pay a fee, or an extra toll on the Illinois Tollway, during peak traffic periods. The price goes down when fewer vehicles are on the roads…

In the proposal, the amount would be 5 cents to 31 cents per mile during rush hours, depending on the specific roadway. That comes out to $2.76 in the Stevenson scenario and $3.41 on the Eisenhower…

CMAP officials said their goal is to get congestion pricing up and running within three or four years, starting on the Addams. A widening project is slated to begin on the I-90 corridor next year, and the tollway has previously identified it for a possible congestion-pricing experiment.

I will be interested to see how people respond and what this public relations campaign looks like. It seems that certain highway solutions in the Chicago area, such as adding more lanes and increasing traffic capacity, are reaching an end or have run their course. Just how many lanes can you add anyway – and it really doesn’t help as this tends to attract drivers. There have been some plans in place to extend mass transit, such as through the delayed STAR Line, but money is lacking. High occupancy vehicle lanes have been discussed but haven’t really gone anywhere. Thus, congestion pricing might kill two birds with one stone: reduce highway traffic (or at least stabilize it) while raising some money that can be reapplied to highways. Of course, this will strike some as unfair, particularly coming after a toll hike (that hasn’t limited tollway traffic much), but no one is being forced to use the express lanes…

Illinois’ Kendall County the fastest growing US county between 2000 and 2010

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While digging through some 2010 US Census reports, I came across this table of the most populous and fastest growing counties between 2000 and 2010 (page 9 of this PDF):

Two thoughts came to mind at seeing this list of the fastest growing counties:

1. Kendall and Loudoun are the only two counties in the top ten not in the Sunbelt. While this isn’t a complete list of counties, it does suggest that the most rapid growth continues to take place in the Sunbelt. Similarly, look at the list of the most populous counties: the three non-Sunbelt counties barely grew or even lost population while some of the Sunbelt counties gained quite a few people.

2. Kendall County is at the far southwest edge of the Chicago region and thus, we should not be surprised that it is growing. Just to the east is Plainfield, a rapidly growing suburb. Just to the north is Aurora, now the second largest city in Illinois at nearly 200,000 residents. Additionally, there are three nearby interstates, I-88, I-55, and I-80 that can help residents get to other places.