25th Ward Ald. Danny Solis, who also heads City Council's Hispanic Caucus, is suggesting rather loudly that Chicago should have 14 Hispanic wards in the upcoming ward redistricting to reflect the population gains of Hispanic Americans in Chicago between the 2000 and 2010 Censuses. more ›

The Illinois House is moving forward with their redistricting plan as more objections are raised to it. more ›

Illinois Democratic leaders unveiled their proposed legislative maps today and they've gerrymandered the districts in such a way that, if Gov. Quinn approves, could pit GOP versus GOP. more ›

We know that Chicago's population declined by 200,000 people over the past decade. The Tribune has a nifty interactive map showing the population shifts in the greater Chicago area between 2000 and 2010. You can use it to search the shifts down to your own neighborhood. more ›

Chicago's population dropped 6.9 percent in ten years, according to data released yesterday by the Census Bureau. The new Census data also indicates that Chicago's loss is the gain of the collar counties. more ›

After some good old-fashioned community organizing, leaders in Chinatown have a political victory under their belt: the state legislature sent Governor Quinn a bill that once signed, will consolidate the 59 precincts in Chicago's Chinatown into one legislative district. more ›

The Census Bureau is set to announce its population counts today which, by all accounts, doesn't bode well for Illinois' Congressional delegation and the seats the GOP picked up in the November elections. more ›

Early census data that's now starting to come to light shows that integration of America's neighborhoods is regressing slightly. As for Chicago? Well, we're still hyper-segregated. more ›

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the number of people living at the poverty in the state of Illinois has increased from its level of 10.7 percent in 1999 to 13.3 percent in 2009, an increase of 24 percent. While the overall increase was mirrored that of the national level, the state's rate of those living below the poverty level is still lower than the national rate which was 11.3 percent in 2000 and increased to 14.3 percent last year. more ›

Amidst concerns over a rash of shootings and the high profile baseball bat attack, this would seem to be a bad time to kick off a campaign sending people out into the city to knock on random doors. But, according to the AP, that is the unenviable task of census workers who will begin hitting the bricks today to contact residents who have not submitted their forms. more ›

Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James would not feel at home here in Chicago. New info released by the Census Bureau shows how diverse the spoken language of Chicago and the state of Illinois are. As of 2007, 21.76 percent of Illinois residents spoke a language other than English, just above the national average of 19.7 percent. Overall, the Chicago metro area is in the top four U.S. cities for 13 non-English languages. According to the information, as of 2008: more ›

The state constitution requires that "in the year following each Federal decennial census year, the General Assembly by law shall redistrict the Legislative Districts and the Representative Districts." This means that legislative districts in Illinois will be due to be redrawn in 2011 after this year's census. This year, a movement to change the way Illinois draws legislative districts is under way. Currently, redistricting is controlled by the General Assembly in a convoluted process governed by party leaders downstate that involves the drawing of names from a hat. The result of this process, which happens away from public input and scrutiny, is that legislators have the opportunity to draw their own districts, keeping their seats safe, and their incumbency protected. more ›

The Pew Charitable Trusts thinks so, according to a new study. The study shows that Chicago's not alone either, showing 10 major cities that are in a similar boat. [WBEZ] more ›

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is targeting the open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois for a win next year, is calling on Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias to "demand the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) sever all financial ties with ACORN" before accepting the union's endorsement. This shouldn't come as a surprise for anyone that's watched the right sharpen their knives on the community group's recent missteps. Which should be par for the political course, if the GOP's own candidate, Mark Kirk, hadn't accepted support from SEIU in the past as well. “Originally I saw it as a Chicago union and if they wanted to help out candidates, that’s fine,” said Kirk. “The information that we now see is, though, that it appears highly inappropriate this organization is involved with the U.S. government.” The "highly inappropriate" involvement with the U. S. government Kirk is referring to? That includes a $140,000 earmark in 2005, for teen delinquency work ACORN was doing in New York. Which Mark Kirk voted for in 2005. more ›

The state is due to explore it's once-every-10-years redistricting plan in 2011 once the census is delivered. Exactly how does the state go about redrawing those boundaries? It's a pretty crazy process, which doesn't surprise us at all. According to WBEZ: more ›

Feel like there are just more people walking and driving around the Chicagoland area? That's because there are. Census data shows from July 2007 to July 2008, the Chicago area increased by 73,000 people. Kendall County was fourth among the nation's fastest-growing counties. With 5,294,664 people, Cook County is the nation's second-largest county. Overall, the Chicagoland area, which the Census considers the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet triangle, is approaching a population of 10 million with 9,569,624 men, women, and children milling about, good enough for third in the nation behind NYC and L.A. [ABC 7, WBBM] more ›

Naperville is getting a special off-year census because the Census Bureau thinks there might have been significant population growth in the area. Only certain neighborhoods (Naperhoods?) will be surveyed, and answering questions should only take a few minutes. And now, the reason we're posting this story: This 2000 SNL clip! Yay! I can't think about the census without thinking about this sketch. Today's video day around here, so what the hay, let's keep it going. more ›

New census data says that Cook County had the biggest drop in white population and has the largest black population of any county in America. Between 2000 and 2007, 215,525 non-Hispanic white people have left Cook County, which represents a 1.1 percent decrease. The black population in the county also dropped by 1.5 percent, and the total population of the county is down 1.7 percent. more ›

Quick: What are the five most populous cities in Illinois? Duh, Chicago numero uno with 2.84 million people according to the latest counts, but the rest?
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