Worse than Detroit: Chicago area sees biggest population loss of any major metro area in 2015

Chicago's West Side

Decades of corruption, high taxes, rampant crime, rotten schools, Democratic gerrymandering, and looming public-sector pension bombs have taken their toll on the once proud Chicago area.

From the Chicago Tribune:

The Chicago region in 2015 saw its first population decline since at least 1990, marking the greatest loss of any metropolitan area in the country, according to census data released Thursday.

In 2015 the region lost an estimated 6,263 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data. The reason for the decline is clear: The number of residents leaving the region in 2015 was so large — about 80,000 in all — that it couldn’t be offset by new residents and births, according to census data.

"The fact is, the whole metro area actually lost population, because that many more people moved out than moved in," said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.

Chicago’s metropolitan statistical area includes the city and suburbs and extends into Wisconsin and Indiana. And it's not just the city and its neighbors seeing a population plunge; Illinois is among the states that saw its population decline for a second consecutive year, census data show.

Of course in the Tribune analysis there is no mention of the graft and sheer incompetence among Chicago area public-servants as being one of the causes for the exodus out of the Land of Lincoln.

Oh, not even the Detroit area suffered as much population decline as Chicago last year.

RedEye, a Trib publication, tongue-in-cheek (I hope), is blaming lack of sex and cold winters for the demographic decline.