The grass is greener -- in the 'burbs

Bad news for population in the city:

Cook County leads the nation as the county with the highest number of whites -- meaning those not Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian or Native Hawaiian -- moving out, according to recently released U.S. Census figures.

More than half of all U.S. counties experienced a decline in white populations since 2000, helping fuel a rise in the number of communities in which minorities are now the majority, the census data showed.

In terms of percentage, though, Cook County lost only about 1.1 percent of its white population, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

Brookings said the numbers of whites leaving Cook County can't be characterized as "white flight" because minorities are also seeking out the suburbs as the place for better schools and more affordable housing.

In both the city and suburbs, more whites are moving out than moving in, said Kenneth Johnson, a demographer who worked for 30 years at Loyola University Chicago. More whites also are dying in Cook County than being born here, he said.

"It's partially because a lot of the people of childbearing age leave Chicago or Cook County for the other suburbs," he said. "It's also because the white population in Cook County is older, so they have a fairly high mortality."

Blacks are also leaving Cook County, with a 1.3 percent annual decrease, according to the data as interpreted by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. But the county still has 1.4 million blacks, the highest of any U.S. county.

While the greater Chicago area grew by 4.5 percent between 2000 and 2007, Cook County was the only regional county to decline in population, with a 1.7 percent decrease, the agency's statistics said. The Latino population grew regionally by almost 340,000, or more than 24 percent, between 2000 and 2007, the agency noted.

Via Newsalert!