The U.S. Census Bureau released its 2006 population estimates this month, and the big news (via the Journal Star) is that Peoria has dropped from fifth- to seventh-largest city in Illinois:
The top 10 cities in the state ranked by population are: Chicago, Aurora, Rockford, Naperville, Joliet, Springfield, Peoria, Elgin, Waukegan and Cicero.
True. But the Bureau also released the figures on Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) for Illinois, and the Peoria MSA is still second-largest in the state. Peoria’s MSA includes five counties: Peoria, Tazewell, Woodford, Marshall, and Stark.
The nine MSAs in the state ranked by population haven’t changed order since 2000. They remain: Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, Champaign-Urbana, Springfield, Bloomington-Normal, Decatur, Kankakee-Bradley, and Danville. It should be noted, however, that Rockford is creeping up on us. In 2000, Peoria’s MSA had 46,695 more people than Rockford; the 2006 estimate shows a spread of only 21,942.
On a more interesting note, the City of Peoria’s population grew by only 171 people from 2000 to 2006, whereas Peoria’s MSA grew by 3,295. So, we’re not attracting many people to live in the city of Peoria when they move into the area. There’s some discussion going on over at Billy’s place on the reasons for that. In my opinion, the top two reasons are District 150 and taxes.
How did Joliet jump so much in such a short time frame? Maybe there are some ideas that Peoria can borrow.
I heard that in a short amount of time that Plainfield will become the second biggest city in Illinois just based on the amount of land for that suburb. I have nothing to back this claim up.
Aurora, Naperville and Joliet are nothing more than suburbs of Chicago, and not real cities in their own right. They have grown so much because of flight from Chicago, just like Morton, Washington, Metamora and Dunlap have grown due to flight from Peoria. Aurora and Naperville are also spread out over more than 1 county, annexing everything in sight. I wouldn’t doubt that some day, Aurora, Naperville, Joliet, Romeoville and a number of other Fox River Valley suburbs don’t join together. If Peoria Heights, West Peoria and Bellevue annexed to the city of Peoria, it would gain about 13,000 right there. Springfield is growing to the west and it has only a very few tiny suburbs. Peoria remains stagnant because the same powers-that-be families have been in charge for generations and nobody seems to care.
District 150, taxes, high crime rate, boring downtown, millions wasted studying ideas to improve downtown that lead no-where…..the list goes on.
WHY?
Does the leadership in this city ever ask WHY? I voted for Ardis because I believed he had vision. Now I can see he can’t see past his nose…which is stuffed up the a_s of every obnoxious city leader in Peoria.
JW and Kars hit the dull nail on the head. Attempts to make or suggest changes have always been ignored or met with scorn, ridicule and downright viciousness in this city. Peoria has chafed for years under inept and misguided leadership.
I believe that Peoria’s leadership base, organizational boards, etc, are keenly aware of this. I firmly agree with JW, “Peoria remains stagnant because the same powers-that-be families have been in charge for generations and nobody seems to care.”
At least we agree on the cause. How about some solutions? BTW, JW, nobody wants to annex to the City of Peoria, and if it was forced, it would just lead to the depopulation of the annexed towns.
West Peoria incorporated several years ago (maybe closer to 10 now) to prevent the ability of the City of Peoria to annex it. Unfortunately, Peoria could have prevented their incorporation but didn’t.
I have lived in Bloomington and Springfield and spent enough time visiting my sister in Chicago to know what it’s like to live there. My current hometown, Peoria, is really one of the more interesting cities I have lived in. So much history, so much architecture, so much natural beauty, so many wonderful cultural attractions. Really, the other cities don’t compare. (I love Chicago, but it has so many traffic, parking, and school problems that I wouldn’t relish living there.) So what’s wrong with this picture? Wy are people leaving to live in the boring cornfield suburbs outside this wonderful city? Peoria has so much potential. Maybe leaders need to do less talking and a lot more listening to the people who have chosen to stay and to the people who have no choice other than to stay. If the two groups could join forces…
Stark and Marshall Counties are part of the MSA for Peoria?
to JW: Apparently, you haven’t been in Aurora, Naperville or Joliet within 10+ years. There is plenty of business opportunities, etc. in each of these cities – much more so than the Tri-County area.
mdd…I never said they didn’t have business opportunities, big malls, fancy schools, etc etc. I said they were suburbs of Chicago, which they are.
Peo Proud, “unfortunately” Peoria didn’t stop West Peoria?? For who?? Certainly not the citizens of West Peoria. Maybe you would support building a wall around Peoria, ala East Berlin, to keep people in??
As for the “boring cornfield suburbs”, I take issues with that, but let’s just say a lot of residents of those suburbs think a good education for their kids is not boring and dodging bullets is just a little too exciting.
yes unfortunately. I believe that regional government or consolidated governments are better for citizens and more efficient
“I voted for Ardis because I believed he had vision.”
If you take a gander… Ardis was part of the Ransberg city council. He is/was part of the problem and folks were not willing to see it, preferring to heap the blame on one person, forgetting it takes whole council to make a difference or to produce failure. Making Ardis mayor rather than someone entirely new was only an incremental change. Guess what, we have only gotten incremental change and not the wholesale revolution in government this city needs.
And so when will the series of meetings to create a mission statement from ‘the bowels of our community’ occur to set us on the path of significant change which Mahkno so perceptively reports is needed?
Stephen Covey asked Peorians in the fall of 1994 to create such a mission statement and he would personally come back and mentor Peoria for free. Still waiting for the status quo to change….
Just for information sake All new subdivisions that hook up to the Peoria Sanitary district must annex to Peoria city unless they are part of another village that is already served by a sewage agreement
For many many years local government leaped before it looked. Then there was a reversal and it looked far too long before it did anything and many things got lost in the waiting. Now it seems that we are doing both and still getting nowhere in a hurry. Also, why the heck are we hiring consultants to come in and tell us, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, how we should model our town after someother town? What is wrong with Peorians doing their own modeling and fixing and having our own unique town? We had a committee on this long before HOP was instituted and there is a very good book made on it, but it got dumped by the way side in favor of another consultant’s theory. We have spent enough money on consultants to rebuilt Peoria two or three times and we still don’t have a good, safe, economically independent town.
“I love Chicago, but it has so many traffic, parking, and school problems that I wouldn’t relish living there.”
That’s why if you have to live “in” Chicago, you move to one of the suburbs that started life as a farm town and grew into a bedroom community in the 50s. Starting as a farm town means they have some character and an actual downtown, and if they became commuter burbs any later than the 50s, the commute is too long.
Of course, most of those suburbs cost an arm and a leg to live in (and a proliferation of gated communities and McMansion developments is ruining their characters, turning them into the Vast Expanse of Suburbia, and destroying crucial open space), but the schools are great!
Go here http://www.kgan.com/players/news/top_stories/video.shtml
scroll down to “Showcasing the Riverfront Part II”
Found it funny how people living here bitch about it while other cities try to emulate it.
I have lived in central Peoria over 10 years and have never once dodged a bullet, been robbed, or been assaulted. I have walked out my back door to find a policeman with a gun drawn, as he believed a fugitative was in the empty rental house next door. But he just told me to get back inside and take my barking dog with me. I have been asked for money in Campustown. Are the cornfields really that much safer? Erratic human behavior, like a tornado, can happen at any time and any place.
Karrie,
The community could start by not re-electing these people. Essential services and New Urbanism seem like a pretty good ‘mission’ to me. Don’t like the list of candidates, find someone better and get them to run.
** cough ** C.J. for mayor? ** cough **
quite simply, you want change, stop talking and start doing. we are a community full of complainers with sometimes grandiose ideas and little to no action. request after request has been made for assistance in actually getting up off behinds and turning of the computers and doing something. Generally one can hear crickets chirping for miles when a such a request is made. There are current organizations which need help. It doesn’t take money, it takes manpower, something people keep missing. While the city wants $200,000 for a ceasefire like program, it will do little good if the same 30 people who work their behinds off in this town are the ones who will end up doing it. There were rallies this weekend, did those folks leave those rallys with specific tasks to keep them involved? (I don’t know, hopefully someone does) Change tends no to happen in abstentia. We blame a lot on 11 people who run the place, but if it’s only 11 people working, they are all doomed to fail.
and the crickets start chirping………NOW
Ryan – Nice link. Indeed everyone bitches about downtown and everything else. Ironically, it’s one of the few unique assets we have here.
When my friends and family visit, we normally make our way to the riverfront since it’s so much better now.
I know the gateway building isn’t profitable or the riverplex, and they were sold to us that way. However, not everything that enhaces our lifestyle here is going to be perfect or profitable.
Johnson,Newberry and Wilkinson should run for city council… so I can vote against them! Wilkinson does more writing than reading. For years people have tried to stand up to big Peoria politics and for what? A big spank? You idiots talk about getting the manpower going…blah, blah, blah. How many of your average Joe’s can afford to spend the time playing Peoria elite? The people DO make their voices heard in editorials, blog sites, interviews…you name it. The problem Wilkinson, is that no one listens!!!! Central Peorian means well,”…not everything that enhances our lifestyle here is going to be perfect or profitable.” No, that is true, but it should be something that will at least draw the people and the crowds to support profitable business [on a regular basis].
“you want change, stop talking and start doing. we are a community full of complainers with sometimes grandiose ideas and little to no action. … and the crickets start chirping………NOW”
I have put in 67 hours with my primary volunteer commitment since our recording year began April 1 (and that’s a little low because summer is our slow season). I have put in approximately 12 hours with my secondary volunteer commitment since May. Both are aimed at making Peoria a better place to live and at addressing problems/needs in the community. I also work full time (Full-time-plus at this point, really), am attending the formation meetings of our new neighborhood association and serving where needed, and pitch in at friends’ events, as well as staying up-to-date and educated on city issues. (And pursuing my personal interests!)
I am not that different from many other posters on the local blogs, some of whom I routinely see at these events because our volunteer interests overlap.
HOW MUCH MORE would you have us do to stop your crickets chirping? I can’t possibly provide manpower for every single worthy initiative in the city, no matter that dozens of them are crucial. There are only so many hours in a day.
Eyebrows, you would be the exception rather than the rule. Since you are posting the amount of hours you’re logging, I would bet that you know that already. You shouldn’t have to provide the manpower for all the initiatives, but there are certainly enough people in this town or even on this blog to make a significant difference in at least one area. just curious who is the “us”
because you then change to “I”. If no one else has said it, thank you for your service.
and “sure bet”. Vote as you please, hopefully you’ll chose better than last time, as you are unhappy with your current choices. I am willing to meet at a time and a place to listen to your ideas AND viable plans of action on how to implement them. You want folks to listen then sit down with them and have a conversation. Instead, some people just rip on them. Gosh, the listening stopped after you call people “you idiots”. Perhaps we should bow to your genius and you run for an office. You don’t even post your name.
Try to present ideas with a means of accomplishment. One expects that our elected officials, all 11 of them, are going to fix everything and there will be rainbows and skittles. it doesn’t work that way, like it or not, it’s reality. They set policy and ordinances. Some policies are ineffective and some ordinances are not enforced. Those are areas which they should be held accountable. They should be involved in the community. They should adhere to their promises, but assuming that they read your snippet on a blog or skim your editorial is an unrealistic method of commuication if you truly wish to achieve results.
In some areas we as a community expect unrealistic results from our leaders and in significant other areas, we expect very little and amazingly elect on promises vs. action, continue to repeat said mistakes with a similiar type of candidate and then wonder why we are so unhappy. Look at the performance and actions to judge future viability.
Also, why simply depend on the goverment for change. There are a number of other worthwhile organizations in the community attempting to elicit positive change in our city that could use a hand.
“you would be the exception rather than the rule. Since you are posting the amount of hours you’re logging, I would bet that you know that already.”
I truly don’t think so. I realize my friends are somewhat self-selecting, but most of my friends put in major hours as volunteers. At least two dozen people put in more hours than I did last year at the Junior League alone. At the County Extension, the hours some of these people put in AMAZES me. (The state requires recording of hours.) I am a weenie by comparison.
“just curious who is the “us” because you then change to “I”.”
“Us” is all the volunteers in Peoria. I switch to say *I* can’t do them all because I personally can’t, but I know some folks who are like rabbits on speed and tear through this stuff 10x as fast as I do. I would not want to speak for them about not being able to provide manpower for all worthy initiatives. 🙂
Paul W,
First of all, who are YOU that I should sit down and have a talk with? I don’t even know you.
I do apologize for using the word “idiot,” I meant naïve. I volunteer for several charities, school functions with my kid, etc. Do what I can. Don’t even read blogs very much. Almost everyone seems to use a fake name. My company would have a cow if they heard me complain about anything “Peoria!” Why do you use your real name? Are we so comfortable with ourselves that we fear no retribution? I guess I will save my “bitching” for the five minutes I get during a council meeting.
Dang Paul, you’ve managed to piss another one off!
who am I? You reported you don’t know me, yet have reported a vast arrayment of qualities. Well sir, you call me an idiot, insult me further by saying that I write more than I read, etc. You reported that no one listens and yet I offered to do so.
I have no problems speaking to the powers that be about viable ideas. You also stated that I should run for council solely for the purpose of voting against me. You must know how I think, what I do, where I stand on things to be able to make such a judgement.
If you’re going to call someone out then be ready to back it up. I have offered to give you some of my time as apparantly you report there are problems and I would surmise that you must have viable solutions.
I am comfortable with myself. I have to stand up to thugs, drug dealors, and violent folks in my neighborhood and others that I help patrol in which have included the south side and the east bluff. I have to find creative ways to help some very troubled people in our community professionally. I try to find solutions for problems rather than simply complaining. I understand the need to vent, but after that it’s solution time.
As far as saving your complaints for the five minutes at council, nope, you can make appointments with your reps and have some discussions with them. That is how problems are solved. I complain too, but also try to look for solutions. It does take a collaborative effort and a variety of talents and perspectives to solve things.