According to U.S. Census data out today, city living is, increasingly, the life we lead. While Chicago posted only a modest gain - not enough to reverse years of decline, Art Golab reports - most major American cities saw robust population gains for the second straight year.

Big cities surpassed the rate of growth of their surrounding suburbs at an even faster clip, a sign of America's continuing preference for urban living after the economic downturn quelled enthusiasm for less-crowded expanses.

Farther-out suburbs known as exurbs saw their growth slip to 0.35 percent, the lowest in more than a decade.

You can explore the different rates of population movement in Illinois and Indiana in this searchable database:

Cities with booming regional economies continue to see the biggest gains -- from Seattle and San Francisco to Austin, Texas, Raleigh, N.C., and Washington, D.C., locales seeing a burst of new apartment construction.

Census data show that many closer-in suburbs linked to a city with public transit or well-developed roadways are benefiting from strong city growth, while far-flung areas near the metropolitan edge are fizzling after heady growth during the mid-decade housing boom.

Suburbs in the South and West also are seeing some gains, such as those around Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Jacksonville, Fla.

New Orleans, which saw its population shrivel in the mid-2000s after Hurricane Katrina, continued to post the biggest increase in city growth relative to suburbs in the past year -- 2.5 percent vs. 0.6 percent. Atlanta, Richmond, Va., Denver, Boston and Charlotte, N.C., also showed wide disparities between city and suburbs.

Other big cities showing faster growth compared with the previous year include Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, San Francisco and Columbus, Ohio.

In all, primary cities in large metropolitan areas with populations of more than 1 million grew by 1.12 percent last year, compared with 0.97 percent in surrounding suburbs. In 2011, the gap between city and suburb growth was narrower -- 1.03 percent vs. 0.96 percent.

During the mid-decade housing boom, city growth had come to a standstill, while exurban growth rose by 2 percent, as the wide availability of low-interest mortgages pushed new residential development outward.

Other findings:

• New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston each grew faster between 2010 and 2012 than they did annually between 2000 and 2010.
• Texas continued to be the big population winner, accounting for eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities with populations of 50,000 or more from 2011-2012.
• New York remained the nation's most populous city, at 8.3 million, with the rest of the top 10 unchanged. Austin, Texas, moved up from 13th to 11th, supplanting Jacksonville, Fla.; Indianapolis slipped from 12th to 13th.

Associated Press reporting

BY THOMAS CONNER

I never made it to my undergrad commencement ceremony -- because I was cowering in a basement.

The sky darkened outside my garage apartment as I ate breakfast on May 8, 1993, in Norman, Okla. When the clouds turned from their familiar deathly grey to that telltale sickly green, I called my folks and told them not to drive down from the city. By the time I hung up the phone, my landlord in the adjoining house was knocking frantically on the door. "You'd better get down here with us," she said. "You're not safe up here."

Born and raised in Oklahoma City, I've spent many an afternoon and evening sheltering like this. I've crouched in bathtubs and basements, huddled in hallways and high schools. I've been bored and terrified, often simultaneously. But I've been blessed -- tornadoes have gotten so close but stayed, thankfully, so far from me and my loved ones.

As a kid, of course, tornadoes can seem wondrous. I remember pressing my face against our front-door glass around age 7, watching a faint funnel dance its way along Grand Boulevard in Oklahoma City, just a few blocks away. The next day, we drove the boulevard and saw the huge old trees uprooted, the park swings knotted, the monkey bars toppled. Around age 12, upon hearing reports of twisters in the area of our home in Edmond, an OKC suburb, my father and I stood in our cul-de-sac, taking advantage of its clear views to scan the horizon for dipping funnels. My mother occasionally stamped onto the front porch to cuss at us and threaten that she wouldn't mourn if both us fools got swept away.

On May 3, 1999 -- one of the many times a gargantuan tornado tore a path of death and destruction through Moore, Okla. -- I was living in Tulsa, the end point of that twister's northeast trajectory, and was flattened on the floor under a heavy futon mattress with my partner, one very confused dog and one very angry cat. Across the room in that house near 49th Street we could see the TV news reports, including one network's tower camera that tracked the approaching tornado by noting where the transformer explosions could be seen. A flash around 71st Street. Another one -- that must be 61st. Gulp, now 51st ...

But here's the thing: Once the danger passed, we put the mattress back on the bed and finished dinner. Life, for the fortunate, went on.

Just another hot Oklahoma night.

The NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder isn't just a catchy team name; that mascot is a way of life, a constant companion, friend and foe. Oklahoma is the bright red bullseye at the center of Tornado Alley. Civil service sirens sound frequently around the state from spring through September, and they rarely cry wolf. For every mammoth monster big enough to make news outside the state -- like Sunday's in Shawnee and Monday's in Moore -- there can be dozens of tornadoes a week through the warm months. Big ones, small ones, cute ones, scary ones. Twisters in the pasture, funnels over the mall. Whirls of wind that snatch away your ball cap. Deadly vortexes that forever alter people's lives. Oklahoma is one of the rare places on earth where contemporary cartographers must keep erasers at hand.

But Okies get up, clean up and move on. As has been reported so many times in my lifetime, we Oklahomans are resilient. Amazingly so, apparently. After the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995 in Oklahoma City, I remember being confounded by the national media's seeming fascination with how responsive, assistive and selfless people were immediately and eventually after the tragedy. They made us sound quite unique.

My native ego would like to take this to heart. Clearly, many fellow Okies have. In the last 24 hours, it hasn't been the media labeling Oklahomans resilient, it's been Oklahomans themselves. Gov. Mary Fallin: "We're resilient and strong." The city manager of Moore: "Our citizens are resilient." Moore native and country singer Toby Keith: "We're resilient." The New York Mets' Jeremy Hefner, a longtime resident of Moore: Oklahomans are "resilient and hard-working."

You know better, though. Like my favorite Okie, Woody Guthrie, I believe this spirit at which we marvel in trying times is universally human rather than merely provincial. The people of Newtown, Conn., were selfless and steely in the wake of their school shooting horror. The people of New Orleans were valiant during and after the wind and waves from Hurricane Katrina. The people of New York defined resilience as the dust settled from the 9/11 attacks. If a mass tragedy were visited on Chicago, my fears would be tempered at least somewhat by the fact that, hey, this is Chicago -- one of the few places I've lived with such a potent blend of might and heart.

But, also like Woody, Okies undeniably have gritty resilience deep in our history, in our families, in our bones. The state's first generation persevered and proved that the land -- one of the last patches on the mainland map to be colored in and called American -- could be considerably more than the human dumping ground it originally was assigned to be. Another generation survived the Dust Bowl, facing down black clouds larger and scarier than any tornado, and they emerged to embrace the derogatory nickname Okie as a badge of that very resilience. Git-er-done isn't a punchline in Oklahoma, it's a deeply ingrained work ethic.

You don't have to worry about Oklahoma. But you can sure help. Here's how I'd recommend pitching in from afar:

• The organization that does most in the aftermath of disasters like this is the American Red Cross. Their shelters, food deliveries, location services -- it's all crucial during these shell-shocked days. Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief, donate online or call (800) RED CROSS.
• DonorsChoose.org has a special online fund to assist the schools in Moore. Proceeds will restock classrooms and help teachers get up and running however they can after the tragedy.


• One of the niftiest post-disaster programs going is the K-9 Comfort Dogs, a part of the Lutheran Church Charities in northern Illinois. They deploy a bunch of sweet-tempered pups and people to visit shelters, hospitals and other sites in a disaster area where a loving mutt's mute companionship sometimes offers the best medicine and understanding. The dogs are currently on standby and ready to head south as soon as it's safe to travel. Learn more and donate toward their travel costs at lutheranchurchcharities.org.

Every little bit counts and -- to bastardize a word my father loved to use -- I can guaran-damn-tee you any Oklahoman would do the same for you.

Protesters were led out of Chicago City Hall in handcuffs Monday after a third day of marching against plans to close as many as 54 public schools in the city.

Reporter Jon Seidel was on hand to document via Twitter the story as it developed: