One city in Illinois is GROWING…which one is it?

200,000+ people moved to Illinois last year, but only 1 city in the Land of Lincoln saw a population INCREASE...which city is it?

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According to an article on WGN, Joliet is the only city in the Land of Lincoln that saw growth over the last 5 years. Over 228,000 people moved to Illinois in the last year which helped offset the over 300,000 who moved away from the state according to the data, and because of numbers like that only Joliet has seen growth, on the site, they say...

"228,000 people did move into Illinois last year...It wasn't all growth across Illinois, though (more than 344,000 residents did leave the state last year)...Here in Illinois, only Joliet experienced growth over the last five years, albeit meager. According to SmartAsset, the city’s population grew from 147,150 in 2017 to 147,696, a less than 1% increase."

The data goes on to show that Naperville, Illinois saw only a 0.1% population decrease over the last 5 years, while Aurora, Illinois had the 3rd worst decrease in population going from 202,548 in 2017 to 182,336 in 2022, losing 10% of its population. Meanwhile, Chicago only saw a 1.9% decrease in population over the last 5 years going from 2,716,426 in 2017 to 2,665,064 in 2022, to see the full data on the cities in the US that are growing and shrinking, click here!

It is easy for us here in Illinois to say "People are leaving Chicago" but that is clearly not true. Chicago can handle a 2% population drop, smaller communities like Quincy and towns that weren't on this study are the ones that can't handle population drops, the leaders of the state of Illinois NEED to find a solution to this problem so these numbers stabilize or turn around over the next 5 years.