is it sort of the Chicago area equivalent of the Inland Empire? By that an area that is pretty exurban and far away from the city center and in many ways a metro area of itself (Aurora and Joliet were cities in their own right before the sprawl reached it). It's also an area that tends to be more affordable and certainly more downscale than the Winetkas and Lake Forests of the area. Also, an area that has traditionally been very conservative whose politics have recently changed due to a lot of working class people from the inner city moving there.
You mean non-whites (especially Latinos)?
in the case of the IE, yes. In what constitutes IL 11, there are some latinos but a greater % of the people moving there I would assume are working class whites from Chicago and the inner ring suburbs.
Both Aurora and Joliet are old factory towns. Along with Waukegan and Elgin they form a belt of industrial towns about 40 miles from downtown Chicago (Gary, IN roughly completes the belt). They all were important railroad centers and had access to water. The Hispanic population in Aurora dates back 100 years to the railroads, and that remained a connection for immigration in the last 30 years. Joliet's industry was primarily tied to steel, but like Aurora there were Mexican immigrant in the early 20th century to work on the railroads. Recent Hispanic immigration has pushed Hispanics ahead of blacks in Joliet.
By the 1980's the Chicago urban growth was reaching the industrial belt towns. Now they both feature an old urban core with large minority populations and sprawling suburban housing surrounding that center.
