Chicago metropolitan area

The Chicago metropolitan area, or Chicagoland as it is commonly called, is the metropolitan area associated with the city of Chicago, Illinois and its suburbs. It is the area that is closely linked to the city through social, economic, and cultural ties. There are several definitions of the area, that being the definition by the United States census bureau, the area defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), and the area under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (a metropolitan planning organization). The metropolitan Chicago population (CSA) is over 9.8 million people.

Metropolitan statistical area
The Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was originally designated by the United States Census Bureau in 1950. It consisted of the Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will, along with Lake County in Indiana. As surrounding counties saw an increase in their population densities and the number of their residents employed within Cook County, they met Census criteria to be added to the MSA. The Chicago MSA, now defined as the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA, is the third largest MSA by population in the United States with a population of 9,580,567 (2009 estimate).

The Chicago MSA is further subdivided into the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL Metropolitan Division, corresponding roughly to the CMAP region; the Gary, IN Metropolitan Division consisting of the Indiana counties of Lake and Porter, as well as two surrounding counties; and the Lake County-Kenosha County, IL-WI Metropolitan Division.

The 2009 estimated populations of the three Metropolitan Divisions are as follows:


 * Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL Metropolitan Division (7,998,257)
 * Cook County (5,287,037)
 * DeKalb County (107,333)
 * DuPage County (932,541)
 * Grundy County (48,421)
 * Kane County (511,892)
 * Kendall County (104,821)
 * McHenry County (320,961)
 * Will County (685,251)


 * Gary, IN Metropolitan Division (704,361)
 * Jasper County (IN) (32,816)
 * Lake County (IN) (494,211)
 * Newton County (IN) (13,736)
 * Porter County (IN) (163,598)


 * Lake County-Kenosha County, IL-WI Metropolitan Division (877,949)
 * Lake County (IL) (712,567)
 * Kenosha County (WI) (165,382)

Combined statistical area
The OMB also defines a slightly larger region as a Combined Statistical Area (CSA). The Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI CSA combines the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Michigan City (in Indiana), and Kankakee (in Illinois). This area represents the extent of the labor market pool for the entire region. The CSA has a population of 9,804,845 (2009 estimate).

Chicagoland
Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area. There is no official definition for Chicagoland, which may be larger than the MSA and include portions of the greater CSA.

Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, usually gets credit for placing the term in common use. McCormick's conception of Chicagoland stretched all the way to nearby parts of Iowa and Michigan. The first usage came on July 27, 1926 (page 1), with the headline: "Chicagoland's Shrines: A Tour of Discoveries" by reporter James O'Donnell Bennett. He stated that Chicagoland comprised everything in a 200 mi radius in every direction and reported on many different places in the area. The Tribune was the dominant newspaper in a vast area stretching to the west of the city, and that hinterland was closely tied to the metropolis by rail lines and commercial links.

Today, the Chicago Tribune's usage includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties (Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee), and two counties in Indiana, Lake and Porter. Illinois Department of Tourism literature uses Chicagoland for suburbs in Cook, Lake, DuPage, Kane and Will counties, treating the city separately. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook, and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. However, there are differing viewpoints, some of which are mostly the point of view of whom one speaks with. For example, many residents who live in the further out satellite counties still refer to themselves as being "from Chicago" or "Chicagoans." Until recently, DeKalb County wasn't considered part of the region, but as the region continues to grow, it is now commonly defined as the "far suburbs" of the city. In addition, company marketing programs such as Construction Data Company's "Chicago and Vicinity" region and the Chicago Automobile Trade Association's "Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana" advertising campaign are directed at the MSA itself as well as DeKalb, LaSalle, Winnebago, Boone, and Ogle counties in Illinois as well as Jasper and Newton counties in Indiana and Kenosha, Racine and Walworth counties in Wisconsin. The region is part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis containing an estimated 54 million people.

Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning
(CMAP) is responsible for transportation infrastructure, land use, and long term economic development planning for the areas under its jurisdiction. The area has a MSA population of over 10 million.
 * Cook County
 * DuPage County
 * Kane County
 * Kendall County
 * Lake County
 * McHenry County
 * Will County

Geography of Chicago
The city of Chicago lies in the Chicago Plain, a flat and broad area characterized by little topographical relief. The few low hills here and there are sand ridges. North of the Chicago Plain, steep bluffs and ravines run alongside Lake Michigan. Along the southern shore of the Chicago Plain, sand dunes run alongside the lake. The tallest dunes reach up to near 200 ft and are found in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Surrounding the low plain are bands of moraines in the south and west suburbs. These areas are higher and hillier than the Chicago Plain. A continental divide, separating the Mississippi River watershed from that of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, runs through the Chicago area.

Demographics


The suburbs, surrounded by easily annexed flat ground, have been expanding at a tremendous rate since the early 1960s. Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, and Naperville are noteworthy for being four of the few boomburbs outside the Sun Belt, West Coast and Mountain States regions, and exurban Kendall County ranked as the fastest-growing county (among counties with a population greater than 10,000) in the United States between the years 2000 and 2007.

Settlement patterns in the Chicago metropolitan area tend to follow those in the city proper: the northern suburbs along the shore of Lake Michigan are comparatively affluent, while the southern suburbs (sometimes known as Chicago Southland) are less so, with lower median incomes and a lower cost of living. However, there is a major exception to this. While Chicago's West Side is the poorest section of the city, the western and northwestern suburbs contain many affluent areas. According to the 2000 Census, DuPage County had the highest median household income of any county in the Midwestern United States.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, poverty rates of the largest counties from least poverty to most are as follows: McHenry 3.70%, Dupage 5.9%, Will 6.7%, Lake 6.9%, Kane 7.4%, Cook 14.5%.

In an in-depth historical analysis, Keating (2004, 2005) examined the origins of 233 settlements that by 1900 had become suburbs or city neighborhoods of the Chicago metropolitan area. The settlements began as farm centers (41%), industrial towns (30%), residential railroad suburbs (15%), and recreational/institutional centers (13%). Although relations between the different settlement types were at times contentious, there also was cooperation in such undertakings as the construction of high schools.

Population
As the Chicago metropolitan area has grown, more counties have been partly or totally assimilated with the taking of each decennial census.

Counties highlighted in gray were not included in the MSA for that census. The CSA totals in blue are the totals of all the counties listed above, regardless of whether they were included in the Chicago Combined Statistical Area at the time.

Over 1,000,000 population

 * Chicago, Illinois (2,695,598 within the city limits)

Over 100,000 population

 * Aurora, Illinois
 * Elgin, Illinois
 * Joliet, Illinois
 * Naperville, Illinois

Over 60,000 population

 * Arlington Heights, Illinois
 * Bolingbrook, Illinois
 * Cicero, Illinois
 * Evanston, Illinois
 * Gary, Indiana
 * Hammond, Indiana
 * Kenosha, Wisconsin
 * Palatine, Illinois
 * Schaumburg, Illinois
 * Skokie, Illinois
 * Waukegan, Illinois



Urban areas within the Chicago CSA
Within the boundary of the 16-county Chicago Consolidated Statistical Area lies the Chicago urban area, as well as 27 smaller urban areas and clusters. Smallest gap indicates the shortest distance between the given urban area or cluster and the Chicago urban area.



The formerly distinct urban areas of Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, and Waukegan were absorbed into the Chicago UA as of the 2000 census.

† These urban areas and urban clusters are expected to be joined to the Chicago Urban Area by the next census in 2010.

^ The Round Lake Beach-McHenry-Grayslake, IL-WI UA extends into Walworth County, WI, which lies (for the moment) outside the Chicago CSA.

^^ The Michigan City-LaPorte, IN-MI UA extends into Berrien County, MI, which lies (for the moment) outside the Chicago CSA.

^^^ The Sandwich, IL UC extends into LaSalle County, IL, which lies (for the moment) outside the Chicago CSA.

^^^^ The Genoa City, WI-IL UC extends into Walworth County, WI, which lies (for the moment) outside the Chicago CSA.

Economy


The Chicago metropolitan area is home to the corporate headquarters of 57 Fortune 1000 companies, including Boeing, McDonald's, Motorola, Discover Financial Services and United Airlines, representing a diverse group of industries. The area is a major financial center in North America, and is home to the largest futures exchange in the United States, the CME Group.

A key piece of infrastructure for several generations was the Union Stock Yards of Chicago, which from 1865 until 1971 penned and slaughtered millions of cattle and hogs into standardized cuts of beef and pork.

The Chicago area, meanwhile, began to produce significant quantities of telecommunications gear, electronics, steel, crude oil derivatives, automobiles, and industrial capital goods.

By the early 2000s, Illinois' economy had moved toward a dependence on high-value-added services, such as financial trading, higher education, logistics, and health care. In some cases, these services clustered around institutions that hearkened back to Illinois's earlier economies. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trading exchange for global derivatives, had begun its life as an agricultural futures market.

In 2007, the area ranked first among U.S. metro areas in the number of new and expanded corporate facilities. It ranked third in 2008, behind the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown and Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan areas, and ranked second behind the New York metropolitan area in 2009.

The Wall Street Journal summarized the Chicago area's economy in November 2006 with the comment that "Chicago has survived by repeatedly reinventing itself."

Major airports

 * Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
 * Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
 * Mitchell International Airport (MKE)
 * Gary/Chicago International Airport (GYY)
 * Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD) (located in the adjacent Rockford metropolitan area)

Rail and transit systems

 * Chicago Transit Authority trains, locally referred to as "the L", (after "elevated train") serving Chicago and the near suburbs
 * Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation, also known as Metra:
 * 4 lines serving southern Cook County and Will County
 * 3 lines serving western Cook County, DuPage County, and Kane County
 * 1 line serving northwestern Cook County and McHenry County
 * 3 lines serving northern Cook County and Lake County, with 1 line extending to Kenosha, Wisconsin
 * South Shore Line shares the Metra electric lines and connects Chicago to Gary, Michigan City, ending at South Bend, Indiana.
 * Amtrak operates Union Station which is the major Amtrak passenger rail hub with connections to Metra and the L.

Major highways

 * Interstate 90, Interstate 290, Interstate 94, Interstate 294, Interstate 88, Interstate 65, Interstate 55, Interstate 355, Interstate 57, Interstate 80

Major corridors
In addition to the Chicago Loop, the metro area is home to a few important subregional corridors of commercial activities. Among them are:
 * Illinois Technology and Research Corridor, along the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway (Interstate 88)
 * Golden Corridor, along the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (Interstate 90)

Area codes
From 1947 until 1988, the Illinois portion of the Chicago metro area was served by a single area code, 312, which abutted the 815 area code. In 1988 the 708 area code was introduced and the 312 area code became exclusive to the city of Chicago.

It became common to call suburbanites "708'ers", in reference to their area code.

The 708 area code was partitioned in 1996 into three area codes, serving different portions of the metro area: 630, 708, and 847.

At the same time that the 708 area code was in trouble, the 312 area code in Chicago was also exhausting its supply of available numbers. As a result, the city of Chicago was divided into two area codes, 312 and 773. Rather than divide the city by a north/south area code, the central business district retained the 312 area code, while the remainder of the city took the new 773 code.

In 2002, the 847 area code was supplemented with the overlay area code 224. In February 2007, the 815 area code (serving outlying portions of the metro area) was supplemented with the overlay area code 779. In October 2007, the overlay area code 331 was implemented to supplement the 630 area with additional numbers.

Plans are in place for overlay codes in the 708, 773, and 312 regions as those area codes become exhausted in the future.
 * 312 Chicago - City (The Loop and central neighborhoods, e.g. the Near North Side)
 * 773 Chicago - City (Everywhere else within the city limits, excluding central area)
 * 872 Chicago - City (overlay for 312 & 773, effective November 7, 2009)
 * 847/224 (North and Northwest Suburbs)
 * 630/331 (Outer Western Suburbs)
 * 708 (South and Near West Suburbs)
 * 815/779 (Far Northwest/Southwest Suburbs; Joliet)
 * 219 (Northwest Indiana)
 * 574 (North-central Indiana)
 * 262 (Southeast Wisconsin surrounding Milwaukee County)

Proposed overlays

 * 464 overlay for 708 (no effective date)