Cities Losing People After '90s Influx, Census Bureau Finds

The main Hispanic neighborhoods in the heart of Chicago, including Pilsen, Little Village and Back of the Yards, have almost no green space. Luis Gutierrez, executive director of the organization Latinos Progresando in the Pilsen neighborhood, said once a family moves to the suburbs, it starts a chain reaction by which relatives and friends arriving from Mexico join them there, bypassing the city.

"My sister moved out to Elgin to be closer to her job," he said. "Then, when her mother-in-law and brother-in-law came, they stayed in Elgin out there with her, not in Chicago. Because of that, places like Elgin are doubling in size."

In Boston, economist Paul Harrington of Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies said the city was hurt by the collapse of the high-tech economy that also damaged San Francisco and other highflying urban centers of the 1990s. Boston's job base shrank 7 percent from late 2001 to late 2004, he said.

"The job creation in the city and state has just been poor," he said. "To see this slowdown and population decline is not surprising in the context of that job performance."

But demographers emphasize that population growth is not the only measure of a city's success. In Washington, which has been losing population for years, "its housing market is stronger and its fiscal markets are stronger than it was 100,000 people ago," said Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Center at Virginia Tech.

Like other cities whose reputations but not populaces are growing, he said, "if you promote yourself to singles, childless couples, gays, the creative class, that's not going to grow your population, but it's going to grow your municipal budget."

Staff writer Kari Lydersen in Chicago contributed to this report.