City white minority seen // Blacks to hit 44% by 2010, says study

Blacks will outnumber whites in Chicago by 2010 and nearlyone-fourth of the city's residents will be Hispanic, according to anew city study that says Chicago's population is rising for the firsttime in 30 years.

The study prepared for the Chicago Planning Department parallelsa national study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that projectsIllinois' population will rank fifth in the nation by 2000.

"This should come as no surprise," Monroe Anderson, spokesmanfor Mayor Sawyer, said of the city study. "Chicago in the 1980s hasbecome to black America what Harlem was in the 1920s. . . . It isthe black capital of the nation."

The study also indicates that the number of whites leavingChicago has slowed.

"There is no reason for white flight," Anderson said. "This cityis becoming dynamic and interesting and it is the capital of theMidwest."

The city's black population is expected to grow steadily, thereport says, and would account for 44 percent of the population by2010, compared with 40 percent in the 1980 census.

The study estimates the white population, at 46 percent in 1980,will drop to 32 percent by 2010.

The Hispanic population will reach 24 percent in the next 22years, compared with 14 percent in 1980, the study says. That's asmaller-than-expected increase, although the federal government'simmigration amnesty program could help boost that number, accordingto the study.

"We are definitely growing in numbers," said Ald. LuisGutierrez (26th), noting that the Latino Institute predicted in aDecember study based on school enrollment figures that Hispanics willcomprise 24 percent of the population by 2000.

But Gutierrez said the question is whether those numbers ofpeople will stay in the city.

"The problem we have to look at is class flight," Gutierrezsaid. "What incentive is there for a Latino to stay in East HumboldtPark after he has made it and is working for IBM? Right now we watchthem move out of the neighborhood and out of the city."

The 1980 census showed Chicago's population at 3,005,072, thelowest since its 1950 peak of 3,620,962. The study noted that censusinformation in 1985 showed the population had increased by 2,531.

"It's encouraging that we have really turned the corner in lossof population," said Planning Commissioner Elizabeth Hollander. "Wewere a significantly shrinking city and we're not anymore."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released on Friday,Illinois will surpass Pennsylvania for fifth place in the nation by2000, while Georgia will have replaced North Carolina in the top 10.

The census analysis also showed that California, Florida andTexas will account for more than 50 percent of the projected growthin the U.S. population between 1987 and 2000.