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Chill winds blow in Chicago: The land of the deep-dish pizza is thinning out
- July 1, 2018: Vol. 5, Number 7

Chill winds blow in Chicago: The land of the deep-dish pizza is thinning out

by Mike Consol

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One could argue it is the worst of times in the Windy City. The municipality and its major suburbs continue to bleed population, and growth in homes prices was last among the 20 largest U.S. cities — alarming trends when demographers are touting the global shift toward urbanization, real estate markets are sizzling, and the country is in the midst of one of the longest expansions in our history.

Let’s break down the numbers.

U.S. Census Bureau figures for the year ended June 30, 2017, report Chicago proper had a net loss of 3,805 residents, shrinking the city’s populace to 2.7 million. That makes three consecutive years of population decline for the city known as one of the nation’s greatest. Consider that Chicago’s population was 3.6 million in 1950 and has lost almost one million citizens during the past seven decades.

The decrease in population might explain why for 13 consecutive months Chicago ranked 19th or 20th for growth in homes prices, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indexes. Single-family home prices increased just 2.8 percent in March, compared with a year prior — and yet that was the biggest year-over-year appreciation in home prices since November 2017, when values rose 3.6 percent.

Crain’s Chicago Business, which has reported on these trends, writes none of the population declines in Chicago and its suburbs are particularly large, but it is occurring during a time of rising national prosperity and growth.

“A decline here surely will be used in the upcoming mayoral election to argue that Chicagoans are voting with their feet about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s performance and have decided to locate elsewhere,” wrote Greg Hinz, a political writer for the newspaper. “They may also reach the same conclusion about the state of Illinois under Gov. Bruce Rauner.”

Among other major U.S. cities, Los Angeles gained 19,000 residents in the year, and New York City, Boston and Philadelphia roughly 7,000 each. Census Bureau data also shows Fort Worth has surpassed Indianapolis to become the country’s 15th-largest city.

GENETIC CORNUCOPIA

Consider that rice is the staple among staples, feeding more of the world’s population than any other crop. Now imagine farmers were able to boost rice production by 31 percent.

The notion was probably preposterous until a team of scientists from Purdue University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences used CRISPR gene-editing technology to develop a variety of rice that is enormously bountiful. The scientists responsible for the feat say a yield increase that large would have been virtually impossible to realize through traditional methods. In this case, they edited 13 genes linked to stress tolerance and growth, optimizing rice crop yields in days instead of the decades it would have taken with traditional breeding techniques.

ARK Invest, an investment management firm that has been following the research, estimates by 2025 the CRISPR gene-editing technology will increase the global agriculture industry’s value by $170 billion.

A RECORD NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES

The Billionaire Census 2018, produced by Wealth-X, found the riches possessed by the world’s billionaires rose by an astonishing 24 percent during 2017, including a 15 percent increase in billionaire population to a record 2,754 individuals.

Other trends uncovered by Wealth-X research include:

  • Billionaire wealth grew at a much faster pace than population
  • While the United States remained the world’s billionaire capital, six of the top 10 countries recorded faster growth in their respective billionaire populations
  • The number of female billionaires rose by 18 percent, outpacing the growth of male billionaires
  • Billionaires are becoming more philanthropic, sharing more of their wealth to support education, health and social causes, as well as the arts

Also worth noting, 567 of the world’s billionaires were educated at one of only 10 U.S. colleges and universities. To wit: University of Michigan (26 billionaire alumni), University of Chicago and University of Southern California (both with 29), Yale University (31), Cornell University (35), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (38), Columbia University (53), University of Pennsylvania (64), Stanford University (74) and Harvard University (188).

Education still pays — more for some than for others.

 

Mike Consol (m.consol@irei.com) is editor of Real Assets Adviser. Follow him on Twitter @mikeconsol to read his latest postings.

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