Sensible Growth Facts about Northeastern Illinois

Compilation of facts about sensible growth issues in the Chicago region

December 7, 2004

The region includes Chicago and its surrounding counties: Cook, DuPage, Lake, Kane, McHenry, and Will.

The city is the third largest in the nation after New York and Los Angeles.
The suburbs together would equal the fourth largest metropolitan area in the nation. (NIPC)
The region is the top freight center in the nation and third largest freight hub in the world.
The O’Hare Airport/air traffic is either the first or second in the nation depending on how the counting is done.
In 1990, 40 percent of the land was still in agricultural production

Trends in the region that affect development and land-use planning related to population, home starts, employment, and transportation:

Between 1990 and 2000, the city increased its population, unlike most other major rust belt communities.
Cook County increased its population 5.3 percent between 1990-2000, and suburbs grew with higher increases, e.g. 27.3 percent in Kane County, 15.7 percent in DuPage County.
Seven of Illinois’ fastest growing municipalities in net population growth are in northeastern Illinois: Chicago, Aurora, Naperville, Joliet, Waukegan, Cicero, and Elgin.
Northeastern Illinois counties had the highest growth of any counties in Illinois, accounting for 84 percent of the state’s growth during the 1990s.
By 2000, approximately 36 percent of the region’s population lived in the city of Chicago, 31 percent in suburban Cook County, 33 percent in the outer suburbs.
Over the past few decades, Chicago’s share of the region’s population declined.
2000 Census on population:
§ Cook County: 5.4 million (including Chicago)
§ DuPage County: 904,161
§ Kane County: 404, 119
§ Lake County: 644,544
§ McHenry County, 260,077
§ Will County: 502,266 § City of Chicago: 2.9 million
Fastest growing cities/towns (in order of growth): Joliet, Tinley Park, Orland Park, Plainfield, Round Lake Beach, Johnsburg, Bolingbrook, Des Plaines, Lake in the Hills, Channahon. (NIPC)

Population shifts have indicated an increasing Hispanic presence in the region, with a 68.7percentage increase in Hispanic population between 1990 and 2000, "most young and relatively low-income." (Chicago Fed Letter, August 2003). Both median and average Hispanic household incomes are below both the total household incomes in the region and non-Hispanic white households.

By the year 2000, 63 percent of all counties in Illinois had a Hispanic population of 5 percent or more o Chicago and the inner ring suburbs, like Cicero and Berwyn, are home to the highest percentages, but Hispanic population is moving to suburbs throughout the region, e.g. Woodstock, Highwood, Crystal Lake, and Joliet.
During the 1990s, in the City of Chicago, white and African-American populations declined. The city’s Hispanic population increased by about 20,000 between 1990 and 2000.
From 1990 to 2000, the Asian population in the region grew by 52 percent, to 4.7 percent of the total population.

Home starts have increased in most areas between April 1, 2002-July 1, 2002 (U.S. Census Data), indicating the growth resulting from population increases.

Cook County: 0.6 percent; McHenry Co., 7.3 percent; DuPage Co., 2.7 percent; Lake Co., 3.8 percent; Will Co., 9.4 percent; Kane Co. 7.9 percent.
Westward (both northwest and southwest)-moving growth is outward from the tradition NIPC six-county region. Home starts are increasing in counties that abut the NIPC area: Kendall Co.: 2,244=11.5 percent; Grundy County, 468:3.1 percent; and Boone Co., 867=5.6 percent.

Rental housing is low in the city and surrounding suburbs, resulting in a shortage. In 2002, the region had an extremely tight rental vacancy rate of 1.3 percent. o 65 percent of the northeastern Illinois households live in owner-occupied dwellings, just below the national average.

Homeownership rate in Cook County: 58 percent (44 percent in Chicago and 74 percent in suburban Cook Co.) to 83 percent in both Will and McHenry counties.

Employment rates have increased:

Employment in the region was at 4.3 million jobs in 2000, with a 5.5 million projection for 2030. (NIPC projection)
The three densest counties, Cook, DuPage and Lake, have surpluses of jobs over resident workers; The largest concentrations of jobs are located in Chicago, north and northwest Cook, DuPage, and southern Lake counties.
The three less-developed counties, Kane, McHenry and Will, have surpluses of workers.
While employment in the Chicago region has become decentralized over the last 30 years, it is still one of only two monocentric regions in the nation. (New York is the other).
In 2000, approximately 24 percent of total employment in northeastern Illinois was in subcenters in highly developed Cook, DuPage, Kane and Lake counties; the lack of employment sub-centering is evident in Will and McHenry counties. (NIPC)
Rate of subcenter formation grew from nine subcenters in 1970 to 12 in 1980, 15 in 1990 and 32 in 2000.
Largest subcenters for employment in 2000 were all in Cook and DuPage counties:
§ Elk Grove Village, Cook County: 101,000 employees
§ Schaumburg, Cook County, 82,100 employees
§ Oak Brook, DuPage County: 78, 800 employees
§ Des Plaines-Rosemont, Cook County: 67,600
§ O’Hare, Cook County: 61,500 employees
Employment Sectors:
§ Manufacturing – Declines in the Chicago and decentralization out from Chicago. Subcenters now focused in and around O’Hare, Schaumburg, Glenview, North Chicago, St. Charles, Wheeling.
§ Service – Number of subcenters increased from five in 1990 to 10 in 2000 with centers in the following areas: Broadview-Forest Park, Cicero-Oak Park Elk Gove Village, Evanston, and Lincolnshire, (Cook County):, Glenbard Lisle-Naperville, Oak Brook (DuPage); Aurora (Kane County), and Joliet (Will County).
§ Retail – Four subcenters emerged between 1990 and 2000: Deerfield-Northbrook, Franklin Park, Hoffman Estates, and Melrose Park (all Cook, with Deerfield-Northbrook straddling Cook and Lake counties).
§ Transportation, Communication, Utilities – Subcenters increased from one (O’Hare) in 1990 to five in 2000: Bedford Park, Midway Airport, and O’Hare (Cook County): Bensenville-Elmhurst (DuPage) and Vernon Hills (Lake)
§ Finance, Insurance, Real Estate – Prospect Heights § Government - Five new subcenters: Arlington Heights, Niles-Skokie-Northern Chicago and Norridge-Norwood Park (Cook County) and North Aurora and Elgin (Kane County) (NIPC)

Metropolitan Chicago has been slow to emerge as an information and technology center.

343,000 people are employed in tech-based companies, producing 11.6 percent of the Gross State Product.
Of Illinois’ tech-based companies, 75 percent are in northeastern Illinois, with 56 percent in Cook County.

The Regional Transportation Authority has undertaken a series of studies to look at extending public transportation through the suburbs and between the suburbs.

The STAR line in the Northwest Corridor, to connect from Waukegan down through the northwest suburbs and beyond O’Hare to Joliet;
The Central-Cook DuPage Corridor Study for a 30-mile stretch to move commuters into DuPage, the region’s second largest job center (after Chicago’s Loop);
The Southeast Corridor (Chicago to Crete, Balmoral Race Track); and
22 separate RTAP (Regional Technical Assistance Programs) for transit plans, station location planning, and corridor and land use studies, with a majority looking at new station stops in the suburbs.

Congestion and travel delays have been growing in Northeastern Illinois, but not as rapidly as in other large regions.

Chicago metropolitan region ranks third in Travel Time Index, the ratio of peak period travel time to free-flow travel time, behind Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The region also ranks third in total annual person hours of delay, behind Los Angeles and New York, and in annual total cost due to congestion, behind New York and Los Angeles.
Daily vehicle miles traveled on the region’s expressways increased from 37.6 million in 1990 to 47.6 million in 2001, nearly a 27 percent increase. (Texas Transportation Institute)
In 1970, only 13 percent of the region’s resident commuters lived and worked in different counties. By 2000, one our of four commuters did, for a total of more than 1 million inter-county commuters.
Northeastern Illinois enjoys one of the most extensive public transit systems in the U.S.

Overall transit trips in the six-county area increased three percent between 1993-2002. Those trips declined as a percentage of total travel in the region. < /UL> < /P>

With increased population, and with the populations and jobs more spread out, the pressures for development often put communities under siege, as they have to make decisions regarding what type of development they want, how many new people the community can absorb and how to protect existing assets.

Land coverage in Kane and Will counties between 1998 and 2028 is estimated to decline from a majority of agricultural or open areas: from 78 percent to 42.8 percent in Kane and from 76 percent to 26.4 percent in Will.

Wetlands, floodplains, and natural areas are under substantial growth pressures. More than 50 percent of the wetlands are concentrated in Lake and McHenry counties.
The region’s total 100-year floodplain covers 425 square miles of northern Illinois, including 80 square miles in water bodies within the flood plains.

Municipalities often face developers competing for the rights to develop subdivisions.

Because of Illinois’ local tax structure, which places the biggest burden for school funding on communities, municipalities often try to land commercial development that generates real estate taxes without additional children for schools. They use many techniques including sale tax rebates, tax rebates or TIF districts.

Pressures are felt on the need to expand water facilities, dig wells, and deal with impacts of impervious surfaces (asphalt streets and roads, roofs, parking lots) that create polluted storm water runoff into rivers and streams.

The counties with greatest amounts of land under pressure for near-term development in Illinois are Will and Kane. Kenosha County, Wisc. – often included in the larger region because of the interdependence of the region – has the highest percentage of its land under pressure for the next decade, 27 percent , followed by Kane, 25 percent. (Openlands)

In 1991, agricultural protection areas were defined by Kane, McHenry and Will counties. Between 1972 and 1997, the proportion of agriculturally-used land decreased from 52 percent of the region to 33 percent.

Site planning that has been done well and is environmentally sensitive, clusters its buildings and leaves large swaths of open space. This type of suburban planning will both accommodate the growth that is coming and preserve natural resources. This makes economic sense and moves the region toward quality of life and better livability.

In a study of developments that compares the costs to developers of clustered or conservation design vs. traditional, spread out suburban subdivisions, developer Bielinski Realty, Waukesha, Wisc., found that conservation design saved money. The cost benefit to using conservation design was $412,040 for a project that would have cost $3,312,283 if done conventionally. Jack Broughton, director of marking for Bielinksi, maintains: "Developers should be making as much money on conservation design plans as on conventional plans."

Municipalities serve as examples in the moves toward green building and sustainable development:

In Matteson, Ill., village officials have landscaped their village hall and police department grounds, preserving the natural plantings that better absorb water and help protect flooding. The village does not use fertilizer, or mow and the landscapes require much less maintenance than traditional turf grass. Using sustainable landscaping compared to conventional turf grass saves 48 percent up-front installation costs and 52 percent of maintenance costs over a 10-year period for a 10-acre landscape in 1999 dollars. (Conservation Design Forum, Inc., Elmhurst)
Tinley Park has naturally landscaped its police station.
The City of Chicago’s Technology Center is a leader in moving toward green building.

Quality of life issues are important. Sprawl promotes unhealthy, auto-dependent lifestyles, and is one of the reasons given for the obesity epidemic in the U.S. today.

Sprawl development drives up the cost of public infrastructure because per unit costs increase as density decreases. (The Costs of Sprawl)

Smart Planning generates substantial savings.

A 2003 study in the Journal of Urban Economics calculates a $24,000 premium for new urbanist development over traditional suburban style housing. The biggest factors increasing value are a compact street network (people want to live in a neighborhood setting), small blocks, good connections to adjacent neighborhoods, and pedestrian environment – these are all development and planning issues, not necessarily architectural in nature.

A 1999 Urban Land Institute study, "Valuing the New Urbanism," calculated premiums of between 4 percent and 25 percent, depending on the characteristics of the development.

Various studies have quantified that the public and private costs of "smart planning" versus unplanned development are substantial:

The cost of providing public infrastructure:

11 percent savings on road building with smart planning.
6 percent savings on water and sewer construction costs with smart planning.
3 percent savings on annual public services due to more efficient land use development

If smart planning takes holds, these savings can be substantial. Between 1999-2000, states and localities spent nearly $140 billion for capital infrastructure (highways, schools, sewer lines, utilities) and more than $200 billion on recurring expenses (highway maintenance, police and fire protection, trash collection and utility service. Those numbers would not increase as rapidly if smart planning were used compared to traditional planning.

Retail Development Trends are changing.

Shifting from regional malls to lifestyle centers, suburban downtowns, and urban markets.
Two-story Home Depot and Target models are appearing in city/urban settings.
There is a major problem of what to do with failed regional malls.
There is a growing recognition of the need to build up housing in suburban downtowns to put life back on the streets and attract the vitality that retailers desire.
Transit-oriented development is a key issue in redeveloping downtowns.

Governance Trends:

The six-county metro area is home to 8 million people, six county governments, 272 cities and village, 1,000 school, park and other special-purpose districts.
The 272 municipalities have exclusive land-use and zoning authority within their jurisdictions.

Among those communities with comprehensive plans:

Nine of 10 plans had little or no coverage of the topic of affordable housing, and few of those that deal dealt with topic in significant detail.
Slightly more than half included significant discussion of transportation issues.
Less than half of the plans emphasized parks and open space.
Less than 10 percent addressed intergovernmental cooperation. (NIPC)

October 2004