SECTION II.
OVERVIEW OF LAKE COUNTY
Lake County, Illinois is located on the shore of Lake Michigan between Chicago and
Wisconsin. It is home to more than 700,000 residents, some of whom live in highly
developed urban centers while others live in rural communities. Lake County covers 470
square miles of residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, and open space land. In
a varied landscape from Lake Michigan's lakefront, which forms the County's eastern
border, to the Wisconsin border in the north and the chain-of-lakes in the west, the
County's residents have diverse backgrounds and lifestyles.4
The Lake County Consortium member cities of North Chicago and Waukegan have
31,359 and 86,273 residents, respectively, who live in aged urban settings along the
Lake Michigan waterfront. With higher-than-average poverty rates, both North Chicago
and Waukegan are among the County’s areas of greatest need.5
SUSTAINING THE LAKE COUNTY ECONOMY
6
FOR THE NEXT GENERATION
“At the Lake County Partners 2013 Annual
Meeting, Rebecca Ryan of Next Generation
Consulting outlined four big trends changing the
face of America: technology, diversity, the
environment, and the talent dividend. As a
futurist and expert in predicting strategies based
on these trends, Ryan emphasized that in order
for Lake County to grow, it needs to view Lake
County as would the next generation.”
Emergent Demographics and G&V