New Census Data Shows Lake Forest, Lake Bluff Shrinking Slightly

LAKE FOREST, IL — New census data show the populations of Lake Forest and Lake Bluff both decreased during the past decade.

Lake Bluff had 106 fewer residents last year than it did 10 years earlier, as the population decreased by 1.85 percent to 5,616.

Meanwhile, Lake Forest lost just eight residents from 2010 to 2020, as the city's population declined to 19,367.

That's a much smaller population loss than in the prior decade, when the Lake Forest lost more than 700 residents and Lake Bluff's population dropped by more than 320.

Lake County as a whole gained 10,880 people since the last census. The increase of 1.5 percent was the third lowest in the Chicago area, ahead of only Kane and McHenry counties, according to the largest set of 2020 data yet released from the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Population trends in Illinois mirror those of the nation as a whole during the past decade. More urban areas are growing. Rural and less densely populated areas are growing slower or shrinking.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 53 percent of the nation's counties lost residents, but 81 percent of metropolitan areas grew during the past 10 years.

Every county in the Chicago area added population, with Kendall, Will, DuPage and Lake counties' population rising at the highest rate. Kane and McHenry counties grew the slowest.

Illinois was one of three states — along with Mississippi and West Virginia — to lose population during the past 10 years, recording 18,124 fewer residents in 2020 than in 2010.

But Chicago remains the nation's third largest city, at least for the moment. The population of Houston is projected to eventually surpass it. But the sprawling 627-square-mile Texan city still trailed Chicago by about 442,000 residents.

Although Chicago lost almost 7 percent of its population in the decade leading up to the 2010 census, the city grew by 1.9 percent during the past decade, adding nearly 51,000 additional residents.

Still, that was the slowest growth rate and smallest population growth of any of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

Aurora is the second largest city in Illinois, with a population of 180,542. The city lost more than 17,000 residents in the last decade. Joliet, the third largest, grew by 2 percent to reach 150,362 residents.

Naperville added more than 5 percent to reach a population of 149,540, the state's fourth-largest, and Rockford lost nearly 3 percent of its population, going from the third largest city in the state in 2010 to the fifth largest in 2020.

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Information released Thursday was originally due to be made public in the spring, but issues associated with the coronavirus pandemic led to delays.

The data will be used to redraw congressional districts ahead of next year's elections. Illinois is one of seven states that will lose a seat.

In a game of partisan musical chairs, the super-majority of Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly will seek to enact new maps that cuts one of the congressional delegation's five Republicans rather than one of its 13 Democrats from the mix when the state is reduced to 17 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the midterms.

But the latest census data will not be used to redraw state legislative districts in Illinois. In a party-line vote in May, Democratic lawmakers in Springfield approved new House and Senate district maps.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker had pledged to veto partisan maps. But in June he signed into law the new district boundaries, which relied on estimates from the American Communities Survey instead of the full 2020 Census Redistricting Data.

Related: Illinois Losing Congressional Seat With 2020 Census Apportionment