Illinois Has Country's Slowest-Growing City: Study

ILLINOIS — Some Illinois towns saw explosive growth during the 1990s, with populations and the local business markets expanding faster that local resources could keep up. But that rapid growth came to a crashing halt with the economic downturn in the mid- to late-aughts. Today, an Illinois city has the dubious honor of coming in dead last on consumer finance site WalletHub's list of Fastest Growing Cities in America.

Decatur, the county seat of Macon County with a population just over 76,000, according to the 2010 Census, came in at No. 515 — last place — on the list. Champaign was Illinois' highest-ranking city at No. 343, with major cities like Chicago (No. 374) and Joliet (No. 499) lagging behind.

So how did WalletHub come up with its rankings? "To determine where the fastest local economic growth has occurred in the U.S., WalletHub compared 515 cities of varying population sizes based on 15 key measures of both growth and decline over a period of seven years," the site said. "Our data set ranges from population growth to unemployment rate decrease to growth in regional GDP per capita."

Here's how Illinois cities fared in the rankings:

• 343. Champaign
• 347. Naperville
• 373. Cicero
• 374. Chicago
• 380. Aurora
• 390. Bolingbrook
• 397. Palatine
• 400. Arlington Heights
• 425. Schaumburg
• 433. Skokie
• 454. Elgin
• 469. Bloomington
• 483. Rockford
• 484. Peoria
• 485. Evanston
• 493. Waukegan
• 499. Joliet
• 507. Springfield
• 515. Decatur

According to WalletHub, these are the five fastest-growing cities in America:

• Fort Meyers, FL
• Midland, TX
• Pearland, TX
• Bend, OR
• McKinney TX

These are the five slowest-growing cities, according to the study:

• Youngstown, OH
• Lawton, OK
• Erie, PA
• Shreveport, LA
• Decatur, IL

Read the full results here.

Photo of downtown Joliet via Shutterstock