Chicago

Chicago, Illinois 

Chicago is the largest city in the state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. It serves as the county seat for Cook, which is located in northeastern Illinois. Furthermore, the larger Chicagoland region, which includes northeastern Illinois and stretches into southeastern Wisconsin and northern Indiana, is the largest metropolitan area in the nation and the most significant city in the Midwest. 

The initial location of Chicago was unremarkable: a little community at the mouth of the Chicago River close to Lake Michigan's southernmost point. The name of the city is believed to have originated from an Algonquian word for a wild leek (or onion) plant that thrived nearby. Regardless of which derivation is correct, it was soon realized that the Chicago River formed a crucial link in the great waterway that arose in the middle of the century between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. However, Chicago's location at the southwestern end of the vast Great Lakes system could not have been more ideal as the country expanded westward in the 19th century. The fledgling city soon became the nation's railway centre as a result of the development of railways, which helped diversify the city's quickly expanding industrial base. The rapid expansion of air travel following World War II helped Chicago maintain its status as America's crossroads and facilitated the city's transition into a postindustrial economy. 

Chicago stretches out inland and along the lakeside before coming together with its suburbs in a ragged line. The city is approximately 25 miles (40 km) from north to south and 15 miles (25 km) from east to west at its largest. 228 square miles in size (591 square km). Pop. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Division: 2,695,598; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Area: 7,883,147; Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metro Area: 9,461,105; Chicago-Naperville-Elgin Metro Area: 2,746,388; (2010) 2,695,598; (2020) 7,267,535; 9,618,502. 

Character of the City 

Driving through Chicago's vibrant immigrant neighborhoods is like taking a trip around the globe; you'll encounter people from almost every country in the grocery stores, eateries, clothing boutiques, music and video stores, places of worship, and street-corner conversations. Due to its explosive growth in the 19th century, Chicago gained a reputation for both political corruption and general disorder as well as for being creative in the fields of the arts, architecture, and commerce. The ensuing economic opportunities also helped to make the city's population more diverse. 

Chicago never achieved its goal of surpassing New York City as the biggest city in America, but from 1890 to 1982 it came in second. This fact has made a significant contribution to the city's well-known character. It was thought to be aggressive and self-promotional in the 19th century, stealing people and businesses from the East. Chicago's "Windy City" moniker actually derives from its braggadocio, which was most notably on display in the 1890s when it defeated New York and St. Louis, Missouri, to host the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Carl Sandburg, a poet, praised it as the "city of the big shoulders" because it was cunning, cruel, inventive, and oddly alluring. Frank Sinatra famously referred to it as "my kind of town" and it was the "toddlin' town" of the 1920s song, according to New York author A.J. In a scathing collection of magazine articles that became the 1952 book Chicago: The Second City, Liebling mocked its provinciality. The adopted epithet persisted even after Chicagoans had forgotten about the book. Chicagoans still like to refer to it as the "city of neighbourhoods," even though that description can carry connotations of segregation by race, ethnicity, and social class. Under the administration of the late mayor Richard J. Daley, effective municipal services made it the "city that works." 

Few cities can conjure up as many opposing mental images as Chicago. It was regarded as exceptional during the 19th century for the rapidity of its growth and the diversity of its population, even though its location in the interior was said to make it a lot more "typically American" than New York. After the Great Fire of 1871, one-third of Chicago was reduced to ashes, but it was swiftly rebuilt as an economic depression was beginning. It was the home of brash criminals like Al Capone and renowned humanitarians like settlement house pioneer Jane Addams and child welfare activist Lucy Flower. It was the city of the lowly immigrant and the new millionaire. Under the careful supervision of temperance activist Frances Willard, there were rowdy saloons. A uniquely inventive architectural legacy, the picturesque Gold Coast lakefront neighborhood, and filthy wooden slums and horrifying public housing high-rises have coexisted side by side just north of the river. Chicago has a reputation for being a shot-and-a-beer town, and its most famous culinary creations include deep-dish pizza and hot dogs that are extravagantly garnished. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has also maintained a high level of recognition on a global scale and has a history of advancing artistic innovation. 

Chicago has always been a town where strangers are welcome. Its status as a rail and aviation transportation hub has always meant that, at any given moment, a sizable section of the population is from outside the city. Numerous organizations and enterprises have chosen to call it home as a result of the location's long-standing support for a thriving convention industry. Chicago is one of the top tourist destinations in the nation since it is the metropolis of the central part of the country, which stretches from the southern Great Plains to Canada and as far west as the Rocky Mountains. The parking lots of its museums are regularly crowded with vehicles from dozens of neighboring states, and its many stores and wholesalers have long been a regional and international draw for consumers. 

People of Chicago 

The historical and rich diversity of Chicago's population is its most significant characteristic. The Sauk (or Sac), Fox, and Potawatomi were the first permanent non-native inhabitants of Chicago, and Jean-Baptist-Point Du Sable (or DuSable) was of French-African descent via the West Indies. New England and Middle Atlantic state settlers coexisted with French Canadian traders. In the 1840s, waves of Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrants started to arrive. More than 50% of the population in 1850 was of foreign descent. Arrivals from smaller nations such as Italy, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Lithuania, Bohemia, and China entered the city through a variety of portal neighbourhoods that were situated just northwest and southwest of the downtown area during the latter half of the 19th century. As they expanded, they built towns that were essentially isolated hubs of economic, social, and cultural activity. They frequently made elaborate synagogues and churches the center of their lives, many of which are still standing today. 

After the turn of the 20th century, race started to cause controversy. Tens of thousands of African Americans left the South because of job opportunities during World War I and restrictions on immigration after 1924. A neighborhood on the South Side of the city that had existed since the middle of the 19th century was inundated by these newcomers. It was quickly given the name Bronzeville and developed into a hub of thriving African American culture, entertainment, and business. In July 1919, one of the worst race riots in American history, which claimed 38 lives, broke out as a result of growing racial tensions that were made worse by overcrowded and segregated housing on the South Side and the return of former soldiers. In the meantime, thousands of Mexican Americans who had taken advantage of the same wartime opportunities and were exempt from the 1924 law arrived, drawn by jobs in the railroad, steel, and meatpacking industries. The city's growth was effectively stopped by the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the Second World War once more attracted thousands of African Americans to work in defense plants, starting a new wave of migration that grew quickly during the 1950s. Along with arrivals from Puerto Rico, refugees from Lithuania, Poland, and other eastern European nations also arrived after the war. At the same time, the migration of employees from wartime internment camps to Chicago led to the emergence of a thriving Japanese American community. 

The city's population has been growing steadily since the turn of the 20th century thanks to immigrants from all over the nation and the world. African Americans made up around one-third of the population in the early 21st century, while white people made up about two-fifths. Mexican Americans have relocated in a corridor running southwest from the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods near downtown to suburban Cicero, where their numbers have increased more quickly than those of any other group. Others from every nation in Central and South America have joined them. Africa as a whole has produced immigrants from every corner of the world. A increasing one-fourth of the city's population is now Hispanic. The South Asian community experienced a significant influx after immigration limits were loosened in the middle of the 1960s, with Devon Avenue on the far North Side serving as both its primary thoroughfare and point of entry. Along with Jewish delis, Russian bookshops, and Palestinian markets, there are sari businesses there. Korean Americans have achieved success in small enterprises located across the city. After the Vietnam War, immigrants quickly established a neighborhood near the lake on Argyle Street, where Cambodians, Thai, Hmong, and other Southeast Asians who were fleeing their native countries found opportunity. 

The ethnic and neighborhood makeup of the city has been impacted by change on a consistent basis, leading numerous groups to fight to preserve their areas. The primary destabilizing force during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly for African Americans and Puerto Ricans, was urban renewal for expressways and public housing. Neighborhoods were also devastated by the loss of industrial jobs, and chain stores diverted local currency. The post-World War II generations were encouraged to build new homes in the suburbs, leaving behind aging parents in deteriorating city neighborhoods, thanks in part to federal home loans, which had restrictions on where and how funds could be spent, as well as increased capacity on commuter rail lines and new expressway construction. The thousands of bungalows that had been constructed in several regions over a very short period of time all began to decay. The downward cycle toward abandonment started in many neighborhoods of the South and West sides because there was not enough new housing stock to replace deteriorating buildings. Newly arrived minorities, whose poverty and color were disadvantages in a city that was becoming more segregated, took the place of the fleeing families. 

A population decline brought on by the demolition of the older housing stock caused community hubs like churches, schools, and hospitals to close. African American communities were attempted to be contained by the construction of expressways around such areas and the concentration of minority neighborhood residents in rows of monolithic public-housing high-rise apartment buildings. The largest such project ever constructed in the nation was the Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side, close to the lakefront. 

Gentrification has most recently caused instability in several parts of the city. Old houses and apartment buildings that are well situated have attracted enough funding to turn deserted neighborhoods into communities of upscale housing units. Thousands of new residents have now migrated into the light-manufacturing belt surrounding the Loop throughout the final decades of the 20th century. These young urban professionals stroll to work in downtown office towers clutching briefcases and talking on cell phones where once immigrant labourers carried their lunch pails to work in factories. Similar changes are taking place in the housing and manufacturing districts along a number of fast transit lines (popularly referred to as "L" lines for "elevated") as well as in some of the historically African American communities along the lake's south side. Small grocery stores and other marginal business have been replaced by boutiques and coffee shops. While the approach has in some ways helped to save neighborhoods and has drawn many wealthy people back to the city, it has also a tendency to raise property prices and tax assessments to the point that longtime residents of more modest means are forced to move. In fact, several of the public housing developments from the 1960s—including Robert Taylor—have already been demolished, while some arrangements have been made for the housing of the former residents. 

Economy of Chicago 

Smokestacks, in addition to skyscrapers and church steeples, have long dominated the Chicago horizon. The city's position as a rail hub and a port made it easier for it to use the raw materials from the Midwest to manufacture a variety of products, including steel, refined petroleum, food products, candy, pharmaceuticals, and soap, as well as communication equipment, scientific instruments, and automobiles. The city also rose to prominence as a hub for publishing and printing. Originally, Chicago's diversity resulted from its function as a transshipment hub for eastbound grain, lumber, and meat that was smoked or salted. During the American Civil War, the city took on a new role as a producer of military supplies, adding leather goods, steel rail, and food production. The largest industries were still railroading, steel, and meatpacking, but by the late 19th century manufacturing had expanded into areas like chemicals, furniture, paint, metalworking, railroad equipment, bicycles, printing, mail-order sales, and other areas that at the time were considered to be cutting edge. Chicago was the Silicon Valley of the earlier age since it produced the majority of the nation's telephone equipment. A competent workforce was necessary for industrial diversification, and its numbers were increased thanks to a longstanding heritage of cutting-edge vocational training. 

Manufacturing 

Smokestacks, in addition to skyscrapers and church steeples, have long dominated the Chicago horizon. The city's position as a rail hub and a port made it easier for it to use the raw materials from the Midwest to manufacture a variety of products, including steel, refined petroleum, food products, candy, pharmaceuticals, and soap, as well as communication equipment, scientific instruments, and automobiles. The city also rose to prominence as a hub for publishing and printing. Originally, Chicago's diversity resulted from its function as a transshipment hub for eastbound grain, lumber, and meat that was smoked or salted. During the American Civil War, the city took on a new role as a producer of military supplies, adding leather goods, steel rail, and food production. The largest industries were still railroading, steel, and meatpacking, but by the late 19th century manufacturing had expanded into areas like chemicals, furniture, paint, metalworking, railroad equipment, bicycles, printing, mail-order sales, and other areas that at the time were considered to be cutting edge. Chicago was the Silicon Valley of the earlier age since it produced the majority of the nation's telephone equipment. A competent workforce was necessary for industrial diversification, and its numbers were increased thanks to a longstanding heritage of cutting-edge vocational training. 

Finance and Other Services 

The tremendous increase in the service sector, which now employs about one-third of the city's workforce, has coincided with the decline in manufacturing's dominance. Chicago has notably returned to its natural preindustrial function as a commerce hub. The city's early explosive expansion and strategic location as a rail hub within the nation's agricultural region made it the obvious choice as a place for commodities trading. The Chicago Board of Trade was established in 1848 by traders to organize the buying and shipping of grain to Eastern markets. A number of commodities were added to its range of trade throughout time, and in 1973 it established the independent Chicago Board Options Exchange to regulate the trading of company stock options.  

While this was going on, the new Chicago Produce Exchange, which later changed its name to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1919, started offering trading services for the markets for butter, eggs, poultry, and other farm products in 1874. The Chicago Stock Exchange, the fourth trading facility, was established in 1882 to handle corporate securities. In 1949, due to mergers with exchanges in other locations, it was renamed the Midwest Stock Exchange; however, the old name was restored in 1993. The LaSalle Street neighborhood in downtown Chicago has become synonymous with Chicago's regional dominance thanks to all four of these institutions—along with trading, banking, and other financial activities—even though the long-standing practice of face-to-face trading that gave rise to them has seen increased competition from electronic trading. 

With its large number of prominent banks, Chicago is still the second-largest financial center in the country, after New York City. However, out-of-town interests have gained more and more sway over local wholesaling and retailing, either by acquiring them or driving out department stores and retailers in a number of product categories. 

Chicago has long enjoyed a consistent flow of conferences and trade exhibitions thanks to its status as a major national transportation hub. Since the one in 1860 that announced Abraham Lincoln's presidential nomination, it has played host to a number of major political conventions. The United Center, the UIC Pavilion, and the Allstate Arena in the nearby neighborhood of Rosemont have replaced older facilities like the Coliseum, the International Amphitheater, and the Chicago Stadium. The lakefront convention center just south of downtown, McCormick Place, has undergone numerous expansions to maintain its position as one of the biggest trade show venues in the nation. Numerous conventions and trade exhibits are held at McCormick Place alone each year, bringing in tens of thousands of visitors and contributing significantly to the local economy. Every year, millions more business travelers, vacationers, and other transient guests travel to the city to shop, eat, visit museums, and attend sporting and musical events. Many of these guests stay in one of the area's tens of thousands of hotels. 

Transportation 

The nation's primary rail transit hub is still Chicago. Similar to how rail travelers did 150 years ago, thousands of Amtrak passengers arrive or change trains at Union Station every day. Due to the switchover of freight carriers to containers, tractor trailers and stacks of enormous boxes are now more common at rail yards and on the rails than boxcars and gondolas. Although the region's belt rails still allow for interchange across lines, many of the rail industry's corporate headquarters have moved out of the city as train lines have consolidated. Maritime industry managed to thrive and grow despite the railroads' dominance in the transportation of vast quantities of low-value cargo. 

Since the beginning of commercial aviation, the city of Chicago has recognized and benefited from the flexibility of air routes as opposed to more or less permanent train tracks. The city built Municipal Airport on the Southwest Side in the 1920s, and it quickly became one of the busiest air hubs in the nation. By the end of the 1950s, though, the development of jet aircraft and their need for larger runways posed a danger to the landlocked Municipal's viability. After much deliberation, the city decided to construct a new facility on the site of the former Orchard Field in the northwest suburban Park Ridge (thus the official abbreviation "ORD" used on luggage tags). A wartime naval air hero called Lieutenant Commander Edward ("Butch") O'Hare was honored with a new airport dedicated in his honor in 1949, and Municipal was renamed Midway in honor of a crucial Allied victory in the Pacific in 1942. O'Hare was formerly without a doubt the busiest airport in the nation, but more lately it has had to contend with other sizable facilities across the nation, while a revitalized Midway has emerged as a regional center. The construction of a third major airport has been a topic of discussion in the city for many years. 

As a result of the Great Depression driving a number of private streetcar and elevated-rail firms into bankruptcy, the shift toward publicly operated mass transit emerged. The long-delayed building of a subway system was made possible by public money. A north-south line under State Street was built starting in 1938 and was finished in 1943. A second, parallel route under Dearborn Street opened in 1950. The Loop elevated ("L") structure, built in 1897 and still serving as the system's primary downtown connection, together with these lines form the backbone of a network of rapid-transit rail lines that eventually provided service to O'Hare and Midway. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) was established in 1945 by the General Assembly, the state legislature of Illinois, to manage the "L" carriers; independent bus firms were absorbed in 1952. 

Chicago grew most quickly while using the "L" trains and streetcars, but it also developed a love affair with the vehicle. Lake Shore Drive was rebuilt as a split highway in the 1920s, which is when Chicago's expressway system first appeared. However, the postwar drive to suburbia, vehicle commuting, and the 1956 Interstate Highway Act led to the building of the contemporary network (some believe it to be one of the nation's oldest expressways). The region's first interstate route was the Congress Street (later Eisenhower) Expressway to the west, which opened in 1956. A spiderweb of Loop-directed expressways and encircling bypass routes was added to the area during the ensuing ten years, closely following the original wagon-wheel pattern of urbanization. 

Public transportation was in trouble once people switched to cars. In order to fund the CTA and a failing commuter rail system, the Illinois General Assembly established the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in 1973 and granted it the authority to impose a sales tax (which was unified and named Metra). In the suburbs, municipal and privately owned bus routes were combined under the name Pace (1983). The RTA has expanded the system and revived it, especially into previously unreached districts in the city's northwest and southwest. The South Shore Line, which is extensively subsidized and connects to South Bend, Indiana, the only remaining electric interurban route in the US, is the only independent commuter train line. 

Chicago residents occasionally run the risk of being "bridged," or locked out of the Loop, because core area bridges need to be raised to allow river traffic to pass. Within the city, there are a number of dozen mobile bridges over streams. The massive double-deck Outer Drive (or Link) bridge, which connects Lake Shore Drive's northern and southern ends, and the Michigan Avenue bridge are two of the most notable. The river is busy in warmer weather with pleasure ships, sightseeing boats, and the occasional barge, despite the fact that bridge raisings are increasingly uncommon and mostly limited to specific periods to facilitate the passage of tall-masted sailboats. 

A dilapidated piece of Chicago's infrastructure was spectacularly exposed in April 1992 when a river tunnel was breached, causing extensive flooding in the downtown basements. Beginning in the 20th century, a network of freight tunnels had been built beneath Loop streets to transport merchandise, coal, and ashes to and from downtown structures. The system, which was eventually abandoned after serving its intended purpose, found new life carrying communications wiring and disappeared until the flood. Additionally, there are the abandoned ruins of three car tunnels that were built beneath the river before 1900 since the use of the bridges was so interrupted by the river's enormous cargo activity. 

Arts 

From the 1890s to the 1920s, Chicago served as a haven for a large number of writers who had fled the Midwest's arid rural communities but were nonetheless skilled and artistically ambitious. Henry Blake Fuller, Finley Peter Dunne, and I.K. As did Chicago-born Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, George Ade, and Opie Read establish a gritty kind of urban writing rooted in the everyday lives of common people. Friedman. Their pieces, which frequently made their debuts in newspapers, conveyed wonder at the skyscrapers, factories, diverse population, and fast-paced metropolitan life. While writing novels, Hamlin Garland highlighted the negative sides of agricultural and small-town life. By 1910, the majority of the original generation of writers had mostly departed the city, but iconoclastic poets continued to flock there. Harriet Monroe had assistance from Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee Masters in starting the significant Poetry magazine. 

Another generation of writers was reoriented by the Great Depression of the 1930s, away from breathtaking views of the city. James T. Farrell, Saul Bellow, and Nelson Algren, among other literary heavyweights, based their works on the challenges of living in their own ethnic working-class neighborhoods. African Americans made their literary debut with the rise of Richard Wright, joining other emerging postwar writers, including playwright Lorraine Hansberry, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and novelist Willard Motley. In the works of Harry Mark Petrakis, Stuart Dybek, Cyrus Coulter, William Brashler, Leon Forrest, Sandra Cisneros, and Ana Castillo, these same racial, racial, and social class themes persisted in Chicago literature of the 20th century. Other Chicago authors, meantime, have used the Windy City's grim character as a setting. A fresh Chicago mystery genre was developed with the help of Sara Paretsky and Scott Turow. Like Mike Royko, who reinvented the newspaper column as urban literature and utilized common sense to deflate pretentious politicians, Studs Terkel elevated the oral history of everyday people to the level of an art form. 

The theatre scene in Chicago also strikes a balance between the opulent downtown theaters and the more than 200 outlying companies that have a history of low-budget experimentation. In the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the North Side, a number of tiny performing groups established storefront theaters in the early 1970s. These theaters include the Steppenwolf and Body Politic as well as the Organic Theatre, one of the first to present David Mamet's plays. For their productions and artists, these off-Loop (sometimes non-Equity) organizations received widespread national praise (many of whom later became famous in film and on television). Actors from the Chicago theater scene soon acquired a certain cachet. The renowned Second City, which has been performing improvised comedy in the Old Town neighborhood for decades, has inspired other similar businesses and produced spin-off groups. The Hubbard Street Dance Company presents contemporary performances, the River North Chicago Dance Company presents hip-hop, house, and jazz dancing, the Chicago Moving Company presents modern dance, and the Muntu Dance Theater presents traditional and modern African American dance. In the meantime, dance has grown in significance in Chicago. 

In Chicago, almost every musical genre is performed at some point each day. There are specialist classical groups, like the Newberry Consort for Renaissance music, Music of the Baroque, and the Chicago Opera Theatre for operas from the 20th and the Baroque centuries. The largest permanent center in the world for the study of both traditional and modern folk music is the Old Town School of Folk Music (1957), located on the far North Side. The large number of African Americans who immigrated to Chicago during the 20th century had a significant influence on music. The blues, which can be heard in bars all around the city, have long been associated with the city as it was the birthplace of legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, and others. Through the contributions of early American jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Jelly Roll Morton as well as later cutting-edge ensembles like the Jazz Ensemble of Chicago, Chicago has also played a significant part in the growth of the genre.  

Gospel music's beginnings can be found in the city in the late 1920s, when Thomas Andrew Dorsey, a musician and the son of a Baptist minister, fused church music and the blues. There are two well-known outdoor music venues where Chicago residents can listen to music in the summer. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra spends its summers at Ravinia Festival (1903), a venue in the north suburban community of Highland Park that also hosts concerts of popular music. Free classical concerts have been held in the lakefront Grant Park neighborhood east of downtown since 1935. In addition, it is the location of the Taste of Chicago, one of the biggest outdoor food festivals in the nation, as well as a thriving series of festivals sponsored by the city that feature blues, jazz, gospel, Latin American, and other genres of music. 

Population 

Chicago is a city in Illinois' Cook County. Additionally, Cook County's county seat is there. It is the largest city in Illinois and the third-largest city in the country as of 2020, with a population of 2,756,546. Chicago's population has grown by 0.37% since the most recent census, which showed a population of 2,746,388 in 2020, and is currently growing at a rate of 0.18% annually. Chicago has a population density of 12,124 persons per square mile, spanning over 234 miles. 

Chicago has a poverty rate of 17.33% and a $90,713 average household income. The median monthly cost of rent in recent years has been, and the median value of a home is. In Chicago, the median age is 34.6 years, with 33.9 years for men and 35.4 years for women. 

The US Census Bureau has just released its most recent estimate of Chicago, Illinois's population. They verified that 2,707,120 people called the city of Chicago home in July 2011. A rough estimate of the population is 2,679,080, with slow growth and decreases due to crime, tax rises, and educational problems. 

The city has 2,695,598 residents according to the 2010 census, which used as the basis for this estimate. If the Census Bureau's 2011 estimates are accurate, they would seem to show Chicago hesitantly initiating a new period of growth since the 2010 census revealed a startling decline of over 7% during the previous ten years. 

Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States, after New York City (8.55 million) and Los Angeles, with an estimated population of 2.7 million in 2016. (3.97 million). Illinois' second-largest city, Aurora, has fewer than 200,000 residents, making Chicago by far the state's most populous metropolis. 

Amount of the Chicago Metropolitan Area's population 

Only slightly more than 25% of the population of the larger Chicago-Joliet-Naperville Metropolitan Area resides in the city of Chicago. The CJN Metro Area is home to an astonishing 9,504,753 people, per census data from 2010. This amount is projected to be roughly 9,554,598 in 2016. The CJN Metro Area, which includes Chicago, is the third-largest in the US after the metro areas of New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (20.18 million) and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (13.34 million). 

The population of Chicago's larger metro area has increased while the city's population has progressively decreased, reflecting both natural development in those regions and a slow exodus of the city's workforce to its suburbs. The northern suburbs of Chicago are comparatively wealthier than its southern suburbs, much like Chicago itself. 

Illinois Diversity 

The geographic distribution of race in Chicago is largely a result of Chicago's historically racist housing allocation policy, which forced its black population into the less expensive Chicago South Side. As can be seen from this map, which represents whites as red dots, blacks as blue dots, and hispanics as orange dots, the city's white population can be found mostly in the northern part of the city, while the black community can be found in the southern part of the city. 

Looking back at historical data also reveals some interesting patterns. For example, non-Hispanic whites made up 59% of Chicago residents in 1970 but only 31.7% in 2010. This finding suggests that many of the city's relatively more affluent white population's exodus to the suburbs over the past few decades has come from this group. 

Top 2 News Websites in Chicago, IL 

Chicago Tribune 

Chicago breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather, and traffic are all available from the Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune Media Group, regarded as a leader in journalism and innovation, has developed into a multi-product, multi-channel leader in news and information. 

WGN TV 

Chicago's Very Own WGN-TV tells news stories from Chicago and its suburbs, northwest Indiana and southern Wisconsin. WGN brings you the very latest breaking news, weather, sports and entertainment. 

Current City Mayor 

Chicago had elected Lori E. Lightfoot as its 56th mayor. 

Since taking office after her historic victory, Mayor Lightfoot has embraced an ambitious agenda to increase opportunity and inclusive economic growth throughout Chicago's neighborhoods and communities. Among her early successes are the passage of worker protection legislation, a record-breaking $838 million budget gap, and important reforms to ethics and good governance. She has also made significant investments in public safety, education, and financial stability. Additionally, Mayor Lightfoot set Chicago on a course to achieve a $15 minimum wage by 2021. 

To effectively address the unheard-of COVID-19 crisis, Mayor Lightfoot has organized a citywide effort involving organizations from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. This effort has included establishing the Racial Equity Rapid Response Team and the COVID-19 Recovery Task Force, among other initiatives. 

Mayor Lightfoot most recently worked as a senior equity partner in Mayer Brown's Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group before being elected. She previously held the positions of Chair of the Police Accountability Task Force and President of the Chicago Police Board. 

In addition, Mayor Lightfoot held the positions of assistant US attorney, chief of staff, and general counsel for the Chicago office of emergency management and communications, interim first deputy for the department of procurement services, and chief administrator for the office of professional standards. 

Mayor Lightfoot was born in Massillon, Ohio, and has lived in Chicago since 1986. She, her husband, Amy Eshleman, and their daughter dwell on the Near Northwest Side.