Editorial – A population trend worth watching – News-Gazette

Remarkably, Champaign County and a handful of other counties in East Central Illinois — Coles, McLean, Moultrie and Piatt — had modest population increases during the period between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021. Only Grundy, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties in Illinois gained more than Champaign County’s estimated net 475 people during that period. The common denominator? None is an urban county. And it was metropolitan counties nationwide that had the most substantial population losses last year.