CENSUS: ALEXANDER POPULATION PLUMMETS

CAIRO, Ill. -- Alexander County gained the unwelcome distinction as the most departed county in Illinois, 2000

census figures released Wednesday revealed.

The population of the economically depressed county, which sits at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, declined by more than 1,000 people from 1990 to 2000 or 9.7 percent. It was the highest percentage of decrease in the state, although other counties lost more in actual numbers.

Alexander wasn't alone among Southern Illinois counties. Pulaski County's population dropped 2.3 percent, but Union County registered a population of 18,293, a 3.8 percent gain.

Statewide, Illinois' population grew by 8.6 percent to 12.4 million. Much of the growth was in the Chicago area with the five counties surrounding the Windy City showing double-digit growth.

Alexander County's decline was fueled by a major population loss in Cairo. More than a fourth of the residents, a drop of more than 1,200, left the city since the 1990 tally. The latest census puts Cairo's population at 3,632.

Cairo Mayor James Wilson expected a decline. "We anticipated a very big drop," he said.

"We could tell by school enrollment. We could tell by utility and water hookups," he said. "I know people that have moved away or died, and there weren't people to fill in the voids."

Even so, Wilson said the census figures are worse than he had hoped.

"A lot of people moved because of the school system," said Wilson, who paid out-of-district tuition to send his own daughter to Kelly High School near Benton, Mo., 32 miles away.

Wilson said some people have moved across the Ohio River to Western Kentucky or across the Mississippi River to Missouri in search of a better school system.

The latest figures will make it more difficult to attract new businesses, particularly chain stores, he said.

Candy Eastwood of the Small Business Development Center at Shawnee Community College in Ullin agrees with Wilson that the financially troubled Cairo schools have helped spur the population drain.

A lack of jobs is another factor, she said. "A lot of people couldn't find employment in the area."

The community college has been working with the Southern Most Illinois Delta Empowerment Zone, a not-for-profit corporation that has used tax credits and low-interest government loans to help spur economic development.

Eastwood said such loans are making a difference in Pulaski County, where new businesses are starting up.

A state prison at Ullin has brought badly needed jobs to the county and boosted the small town's population from 402 to 779, a 93.8 percent increase. The increase reflects the fact that prisoners are counted in the population total.

But jobs alone won't spur population growth, she said. People often live in one city and work in another.

"We have said for quite some time if we could drop the two bridges that connect us to Kentucky and Missouri we could have economic development in our areas," Eastwood said.

Some officials said the flagging farm economy was to blame for the problems in Southern Illinois counties.

Illinois Agriculture Department statistics show that from 1990 to 1999, the number of acres in the state devoted to farming dropped from 28.4 million to 27.7 million. At the same time, the state lost 4,000 farms, due mainly to smaller, family owned farms making way for larger operations.

As for Union County, the numbers look good to Jerry Reppert, an Anna, Ill., newspaper publisher and civic leader.

The county's population has grown by 674 people in 10 years. The city of Anna has grown to over 5,100, a 6.9 percent increase. The bordering city of Jonesboro has grown by 7.2 percent to 1,853.

"It sounds excellent to me. That is solid growth," he said.

Racial diversity

Statewide, many of the areas that grew could credit the population increase in part to an influx of Hispanics. The state's Hispanic population has grown by almost 70 percent since 1990, with Hispanics now making up 12.3 percent of the state's population, compared to 7.9 percent in 1990.

Population growth among blacks and Asians outpaced that of whites and surpassed the overall growth rate in the state.

It wasn't enough to protect the state's congressional delegation, which will shrink from 20 to 19 seats. The numbers released Wednesday will be used to redraw the maps for congressional and state legislative districts.

Those remaps are likely to shift more of the political power in the state to the five counties surrounding Chicago, not including Cook County, all of which grew at double or more the state's growth rate. McHenry and Will counties each zoomed up by more than 40 percent.

Redistricting will leave Southern Illinois with fewer legislative seats and less political power, Reppert said.

The two biggest cities are still Chicago and Rockford, but two suburban cities knocked Peoria and Springfield out of third and fourth place. Aurora is now the state's third-largest city, with Naperville fourth.

Among the 15 largest counties, only two outside the Chicago area grew faster than the state as a whole: McLean County, which includes the Bloomington-Normal area; and Winnebago County, which contains Rockford.

Most of the largest downstate counties saw modest gains of less than 6 percent. St. Clair County was the only one of the 15 largest counties to lose population, declining 2.6 percent. The county's Scott Air Force Base lost more than 4,500 people from 1990 to 2000.

Small cities gain

Some small cities surrounding the state's largest metropolitan areas downstate picked up population as people moved out of cities like Peoria in search of smaller schools and less crime.

Tonya Spring, a 28-year-old convenience store clerk in Morton, said she talks to people every day who are commuting from smaller towns into Peoria, about 10 miles away.

Morton saw its population increase by 10.1 percent in the last 10 years, while Peoria shrunk by 0.5 percent. Spring lives in nearby Washington, where the population grew 7.3 percent.

"I like the neighborhoods, and it's right in between everything Bloomington and Peoria," Spring said.

Chicago grew at a time when many large northern U.S. cities lost population. The city's population increased by 112,290 from 1990, driven by an explosion in the Hispanic community. Hispanics now account for more than a quarter of the city's population.

The 2000 census marked the first time residents could choose more than one race, making racial comparisons to 1990 difficult. Of the state's 12.4 million residents, almost 12.2 million -- or 98.1 percent -- chose only one race on the 2000 census form.

Among those people, whites made up 73.5 percent, followed by blacks at 15.1 percent and Asians at 3.4 percent.

In the 1990 count of the total population of Illinois, whites accounted for 78.3 percent, blacks for 14.8 percent and Asians for 2.5 percent.

Hispanic is an ethnic category, not a race, on the census form. That means people identifying themselves as Hispanic also can choose a race such as black or white.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Southern Illinois census

Alexander County

2000 pop. 9,590; 1990 pop. 10,626;

decrease of 1,036 or 9.7 percent.

Cairo

2000 pop. 3,632; 1990 pop. 4,846;

decrease of 1,214 or 25.1 percent.

Tamms

2000 pop. 724; 1990 pop. 748;

decrease of 24 or 3.2 percent.

East Cape Girardeau

2000 pop. 437; 1990 pop. 451

decrease of 14 or 3.1 percent

Pulaski County

2000 pop. 7,348; 1990 pop. 7,523;

decrease of 175 or 2.3 percent.

Ullin

2000 pop. 779; 1990 pop. 402;

increase of 377 or 93.8 percent.

Mound City

2000 pop. 692; 1990 pop. 756;

decrease of 73 or 9.5 percent.

Mounds

2000 pop. 1,117; 1990 pop. 1,407;

decrease of 290 or 20.6 percent.

Union County

2000 pop. 18,293; 1990 pop. 17,619;

increase of 674 or 3.8 percent.

Anna

2000 pop. 5,136; 1990 pop. 4,805;

increase of 331 or 6.9 percent.

Jonesboro

2000 pop. 1,853; 1990 pop. 1,728;

increase of 125 or 7.2 percent.

Source: Census Bureau