© 2024 WNIJ and WNIU
Northern Public Radio
801 N 1st St.
DeKalb, IL 60115
815-753-9000
Northern Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Aurora Mayor Calls for Census Data to be Reviewed

Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin

The recent release of the 2020 decennial census data is receiving mixed reviews in northern Illinois.

During an Aurora City Council meeting, Mayor Richard Irvin challenged the latest figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

"We all know that regardless of what that census number says that those residents still live in the city of Aurora," said Irvin. "If 17,000 people just got up and left there'd be 17,000 empty houses and apartments all over the city which we do not see."

The 2020 Census reported that in the past 10 years, the population of Aurora dropped from nearly 200,000 inhabitants to just over 180,000 by 2021. Irvin added that some $30 million over 10 years is on the line and is therefore calling for a review of the 2020 count.

Juanpablo covers environmental, substandard housing and police-community relations. He’s been a bilingual facilitator at the StoryCorps office in Chicago. As a civic reporting fellow at City Bureau, a non-profit news organization that focuses on Chicago’s South Side, Ramirez-Franco produced print and audio stories about the Pilsen neighborhood. Before that, he was a production intern at the Third Coast International Audio Festival and the rural America editorial intern at In These Times magazine. Ramirez-Franco grew up in northern Illinois. He is a graduate of Knox College.