Will Census alter top 10 towns?

Population has been fairly steady in largest cities, although Cicero would seem to be out

Downtown Champaign in a photo taken in the 2010s, when it replaced Cicero in the state’s top 10 cities. (Wikimedia Commons/Brian Zelip)

By Ted Cox

The ranking of the state’s top 10 towns has been fairly constant the last couple of years.

There have been some changes since the 2010 U.S. Census, such as Cicero dropping out of the top 10, replaced by Champaign, which went on to pass Waukegan, but for the most part population has remained level or dropped only slightly in the top cities.

Chicago is indicative. Although the city has lost residents, there’s actually little difference between the population found in the 2010 U.S. Census, 2,695,598, and estimated last July by the Census Bureau, 2,693,976.

Aurora, the state’s No. 2 town, registered 197,899 residents in the 2010 Census, and it cracked 200,000 for a few years in the middle of the decade, but as of last July it was back at 197,757.

By absolute numbers, of the top 10 cities in 2010, eight have seen drops in population since, with only Naperville and Elgin adding residents. But most, like Chicago and Aurora, saw population remain level for the most part, such as Joliet at 147,344, within 100 of its 2010 Census figure of 147,433.

In the top five, Naperville and Rockford swapped places, in third and fifth, with Joliet holding steady in fourth. The Chicago Tribune ran a story last weekend about Rockford being one of the towns that have seen significant population loss, from 152,871 in the 2010 Census to 145,609 last July, while Naperville grew by almost the same amount, from 141,853 in 2010 to 148,449 last year.

Smaller Decatur was the other town the Trib focused on. It saw population decline from 76,122 in 2010 to 70,746 last year.

Springfield, the state capital, remained relatively level in sixth place, at 114,230 last year, down slightly from 116,250 in 2010. Peoria suffered a slightly larger loss, from 115,007 to 110, 417, allowing Elgin to move up into seventh, as it grew from 108,188 to 110,849, although it actually passed Peoria not last year but earlier in the decade.

Once Champaign replaced Cicero in the top 10, it kept growing, from 81,055 in 2010 to 88,909 last year. It too passed Waukegan earlier in the decade, as the north-shore town slipped slightly from 89,078 in 2010 to 86,075 last year.

But that also means that of the top 10 Illinois towns last year, three have seen increases since 2010: Naperville, Elgin, and Champaign.

Will those rankings hold in the 2020 Census? Good question. The Census, like almost everything else, was locked down the last couple of months by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that has altered the number of college students on site in Champaign. The Census is only just getting rolling again, with its on-site visits, and one would assume that the count will make allowances for the college students who would have been on campus April 1, who technically were still local residents.

It’s worth noting that of the state’s two major university twin cities, Champaign-Urbana and Bloomington-Normal, all four saw population increase from the 2010 Census to last year’s estimates. Will those gains hold when the formal 2020 U.S. Census figures are released? They’re still counting noses.