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Census figures show losses in some central Illinois counties

Posted July 06, 2007 11:00 pm

MATT BUEDEL

As touchstones of economic vitality, recently released census estimates tell rural developers little they didn't already know.

Unless more is done to attract or retain young people, the trickle of residents leaving bucolic central Illinois is likely to drain essential resources long-term.

Unless jobs like those lost in the manufacturing sector are replenished, some skilled members of the workforce will migrate to new positions in different cities.

Those factors, or lack thereof, are the driving forces behind minimal to moderate population losses reflected in the U.S. Census Bureau's estimate for 2006 - numbers that, though not entirely accurate, illustrate how sparsely populated towns in the area are thinning.

And some, but not all, of the metropolitan centers in the area are drawing the excess.

Bureau, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Knox, Marshall, Mason, McDonough, Putnam, Stark and Warren counties all posted losses in the estimates, while LaSalle County showed modest gains and McLean County grew significantly.

"We've had really slow growth in the western part of the state, and I think that's just a sign of the times," said Norm Walzer, director emeritus of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs and professor of economics at Western Illinois University.

"So many people are going to college, and the jobs in a smaller community don't justify the college education," he said. "They used to be able to come back, and now they can't."

Walzer, however, cautioned against reading the estimates too literally. Projected using a methodology that takes into account construction permits and housing material shipments, the figures are derived using a broad and complex formula.

"It turns out at the end of the decade, when they perform the actual census, they're way off, so I wouldn't put a lot of faith in the estimates," Walzer said. "I would be inclined to think (the population) is more stagnant."

The livelihood of small-town residents - and their ability to sustain the community - also is more susceptible to one-time events, like factory closures, that larger, more economically diverse areas can more easily absorb.

Such was the case in Knox County, which since the last official population count lost a handful of major employers. The most recent estimate showed a loss of more than 5 percent of its residents since 2000, with the city of Abingdon hemorrhaging an estimated 7.2 percent of its residents in the same time frame.

"When the factories went down in Galesburg, a lot of people from here worked there, and they left," said Abingdon City Councilman Ronnie Steele, referring to the shuttered Maytag and Butler Manufacturing plants. "At one time, I think probably everybody in town worked at one of those places."

The result has been mostly predictable. Though economic forecasters envisioned double-digit unemployment statistics, they never materialized. But some who did find work followed it, rather than commuting to regional centers like Peoria or the Quad Cities.

"If you ever saw our Main Street, you'd know what I'm talking about," Steele said. "There's so many vacant buildings."

But Greg Mangieri, president of the Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association, doesn't think the county's projected loss of nearly 3,000 inhabitants is on target. He points to a steady housing market and Galesburg's commercial sector as evidence.

"If you judge by our retail business, you wouldn't think that we had that loss," he said.

And there is hope, at least in the short term, for new jobs that pay well enough to support a family and keep communities vibrant, Mangieri added. The ethanol boom contains huge potential for the type of jobs that Galesburg and the surrounding towns lost.

"I think the alternative energy industry in general is going to turn that around," he said.

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