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Fresh story in the local papers is that Joliet (located to the SW of Chicago) is one of the FASTEST gaining middle-tier cities in the country, because of its affordable housing. Many people are fleeing Chicago (and with good reason, in my opinion ;-).

Excerpt from the above-linked story:

With affordable housing and an aggressive annexation policy, Joliet has become one of the nation's fastest growing large cities--a rarity outside the Sun Belt.

Joliet ranked 14th among cities with at least 100,000 residents for growth between July 2003 and July 2004, according to Census Bureau estimates released Thursday.

As the far southwest suburb grew, the estimates suggest, Chicago saw a slight population decline.

Bucking the notion of growth fueled by condominium projects across the city, the estimates show that Chicago lost more than 13,000 people, or .5 percent.

The nation's third-largest city now has an estimated 2,862,244 people, down nearly 34,000 from the 2000 census, or 1.2 percent.

Demographers say that immigrants are increasingly moving to the suburbs when first arriving in the area, rather than landing in the city. Much of the city's new residential construction, meanwhile, is going to singles, couples and empty-nest households that are smaller than families leaving the city.

In Joliet, the new figures show an addition of more than 5,400 residents during the year, a 4.4 percent increase to a population of 129,519. The city has now grown nearly 22 percent since the 2000 census.

"Demographers say that immigrants are increasingly moving to the suburbs when first arriving in the area, rather than landing in the city. Much of the city's new residential construction, meanwhile, is going to singles, couples and empty-nest households that are smaller than families leaving the city."

What really isn't being told by the reporters, but is being said in the statistics, is that our Gay, Greek, city-states (call them American cities or hyper-urban areas only if you must) are dying.

As more people leave (or die; keep in mind that gays have substantially shorter life spans), the cities raise taxes to "make up for" the loss in tax revenue; this drives even larger population losses. This is not a new trend, nor is it likely to subside anytime soon.

And that's the *real* Blue versus Red America. It's not a state by state issue; it's a mega-city versus suburban, x-urban, and rural issue.

The largest of cities in the U.S. are striving to turn back the clock to the days of gay, greek city-states of 1,500 B.C.

In response, these cities are declining.

Note however that the overall population of the U.S. is increasing even as our mega-cities lose numbers. This has shifted power *away* from urban hyper-centers.

Noted author Alvin Toffler calls this sort of seismic restructuring a "Power Shift."

Back in 2002 my wife and I retraced Walter Wyckoff's 1891 walk across America and passed through Joliet, as he worked in a steel mill there.

We thought the town was OK but had a heckuva time finding the depressing site of the old steel mill. The city was trying to make lemonade out of lemons and turned the abandoned ruins into a walk-through tour. They did a pretty good job, but it was a bitter reminder of de-industrialization this country went through.