REGIONAL ECONOMY (Pages 3-8)

Growing Economy

GOAL – ROBUST BUSINESSES WILL POWER OUR ECONOMY AND INCREASE THE REGION’S PROSPERITY, ITS PROMINENCE AND ITS ATTRACTIVENESS TO PEOPLE AND COMPANIES.

• A diverse mix of traditional and new economy industry sectors drive our $319.5 billion regional economy. Compared to national levels, most of these sectors employ a higher concentration of workers in this region.
• The average wage paid to employees in 11 of the 15 industry sectors that drive the region’s economy were higher than the national averages for those 11 industry sectors.
• After steady economic growth during the 1990s and through the year 2000, the expansion stalled. The region lost jobs at a faster rate than the nation from 2000 to 2001.
• The number of companies with 500 or more employees and headquartered in the Chicago region declined 3.6 percent in 2000, from 192 to 185 such headquarters. Compared to other U.S. metropolitan regions, the Chicago region is fourth in the number of headquarters of companies with 500 or more employees and ranks a distant second to New York City in the number of headquarters of companies with more than 2,500 employees.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

GOAL – THE REGION WILL BE KNOWN FOR ITS SUCCESS IN DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS, BUSINESSES AND INDUSTRIES.

• The region’s share of national venture capital fell to 2.1 percent in 2000, dropping the region to 11th place in share of national venture capital investments among the top 20 metropolitan regions.
• The Chicago region’s universities are lagging somewhat when compared with five other regions in the number of technology licenses issued and royalties collected.

TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE (Pages 11 to 16)

Efficient Land Use

GOAL – MOST NEW DEVELOPMENT WILL MAKE EFFICIENT USE OF EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE, LAND AND BUILDINGS.

• As of 2001, the region’s approved boundaries for water and sewer infrastructure, a measure of urban development, consumed 71 percent of the six-county region. Between 1994 and 2001, 57 expansion requests were approved. The median size of each expansion was 160 acres.

Efficient Mobility

GOAL – THE REGION WILL IMPROVE ITS EFFICIENCY IN MOVING PEOPLE AND GOODS.

• Forty percent of daily motor vehicle travel occurred in heavy traffic conditions in 1999. The average rush hour trip took 69 percent more time than the same trip in a non-congested period.
• Per capita ridership on the region’s three public transit systems remained relatively steady for the sixth year in a row.
• Four out of 10 adults in the region accessed the Internet at least twice per week in 2000, doubling the share since 1998. Seventy-one percent of the region’s Asian-Americans used the Internet regularly in 2000, compared to 23 percent of African-Americans.
• In 2000, the region’s airports served the fourth most international destinations of all U.S. metropolitan regions, but Houston and Atlanta are challenging our position.

HOUSING (Pages 19 to 22)

Housing Choice and Affordability

GOAL – ALL PEOPLE WILL HAVE ACCESS TO QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HOUSING THAT IS ACCESSIBLE TO JOBS ACROSS THE REGION.

• More than one-third of the region’s rental households pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income for rent, making them “rent burdened.” The percentage of rental households that are rent burdened declined between 1995 and 1999.
• The region produced nearly 40,000 new single and multi-family housing units in 2001. However, the multi-family growth was uneven across the region with 67 percent of it concentrated in Cook County. Houses are available for purchase by median income families throughout the region, but the affordable housing options are fewest in communities experiencing the most job growth between 1991 and 2000.
• Just over 7,000 new rental units were added between 1990 and 2000 despite the addition of more than 469,000 jobs in that same period.

COMMUNITY LIFE (Pages 25 to 32)

Shared Prosperity

GOAL – ALL PEOPLE AND PLACES WILL BENEFIT FROM THE REGION’S PROSPERITY.

• The income gap between high- and low-income households in the region increased 11 percent between 1999 and 2000, the first rise in seven years.
• Nearly one in seven children aged 18 and under in the Chicago region lived below the federal poverty level in 2000 – the first significant increase in five years.
• When comparing the overall segregation of the Chicago region’s African-American population to the nation’s 10 largest metropolitan areas, Chicago ranks third in segregation. Thirty-seven percent of the region’s residents live in census tracts that are more than 80 percent white.
• The average tax capacity per household – the amount of revenue a municipality could raise if it taxed each household at the regional average – was $747 in 1998, but there is an uneven distribution of capacity across the region. Tax capacity indicates whether communities have a sufficient revenue base to fund public services.

Safe Neighborhoods

GOAL – PEOPLE WILL FEEL SAFE IN THEIR HOMES, WORKPLACES, SCHOOLS AND NEIGHBORHOODS, REGARDLESS OF THE INCOME LEVELS IN THAT COMMUNITY.

• Continuing a decade-long decline, violent crime fell 5 percent in 2000, and the property crime rate fell 6 percent. The region’s violent crime rate was 54 percent higher than the national rate.

Healthy People

GOAL – RESIDENTS AT ALL INCOME LEVELS WILL HAVE ACCESS TO HIGH QUALITY AND AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE THAT FOCUSES ON WELLNESS AND PREVENTION.

• In 1999, 82.6 percent of the region’s adult population under the age of 65 had health insurance, almost identical to the national rate of 82.5 percent, but an estimated 1.4 million people in the 13-county Chicago region do not have insurance.
• The infant mortality rate for the region rose to 8.8 per 1,000 live births in 1999, up for the second straight year and 22 percent higher than the national rate of 7.2 per 1,000 live births.
• The percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds immunized against the flu virus in 2000 was 94.2 percent, virtually unchanged from 94.3 percent in 1999.
• Between 1999 and 2000, the rate of hospitalizations for stroke increased 2.8 percent among all persons over age 65 in the region to 221 hospitalizations per 10,000 persons.

EDUCATION (Pages 35 to 42)

School Readiness

GOAL – INFANTS AND TODDLERS IN ALL COMMUNITIES WILL BE PREPARED TO SUCCEED IN SCHOOL.

• The supply of early childhood programs has outpaced the population growth of children under the age of 5, but the increased supply only allowed one out of three young children to enroll in those programs in 2000.

Educational Achievement

GOAL – RESIDENTS WILL GAIN THE KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE SKILLS REQUIRED TO SUCCEED IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AND SOCIETY.

• Significant per pupil spending disparities exist within the region, and districts with the highest per pupil spending employ a higher percentage of teachers with advanced training.
• There is a wide disparity in academic achievement in the region, and some of the disparity can be correlated to household income.
• Nearly 78 percent of students entering public high schools in 1997 graduated with their class in 2001, and the graduation rates were highest in school districts with the lowest share of low-income students.
• Forty-two percent of the region’s 25- to 29-year-olds held at least an associate’s degree in 2000, down from a high of 47 percent in 1997 but above the national average of 37 percent. Educational achievement levels vary greatly by ethnicity.

NATURAL ENVIRONMENT (Pages 45 to 47)

Environmental Stewardship

GOAL – THE REGION WILL PRACTICE GOOD STEWARDSHIP OF THE ENVIRONMENT, INCLUDING AIR, WATER, NATURAL HABITATS AND OPEN SPACE.

• In 2000, another 5,266 acres of land were designated as protected open space, raising to 7.2 percent the share of the region’s total acreage that is protected land.
• The region experienced 14 “bad air days” due to particulate matter pollution and one “bad air day” due to ozone pollution in 2000.
• Stream water quality among selected watersheds in the region improved by more than 10 percent between 1982 and 1997.