The US Census Bureau thread

[M II A II R II K]

U.S. Population: Nearly 309 Million, Census Says


December 21, 2010

By Mark Memmott



Read More: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...=nl&cc=brk-201

Interactive Map: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/

The nation's 23rd census has concluded that the U.S. population stood at 308,745,538 on April 1 of this year, up 9.7% from 281,421,906 in the year 2000, the Census Bureau just announced.

- Census Director Robert Groves is asked whether the slow growth during the Great Depression years and the slow growth of the past decade (marked for the past two years by the so-called Great Recession) could both be attributed to the decades' economic woes. It's "an assertion on the part of historians" that population growth slowed in the 1930s because of the depression, Groves says. And "the case is pretty attractive to make that the depression hurt the growth rate." But, he says, "teasing out the effect" of the economy on population growth isn't easy and "we'll never be" sure how much the economic problems may have weighed on growth. It's worth noting, he adds, that "many developing countries" have seen their population growth slow in recent years.

- On citizenship: Census Director Robert Groves was just asked about whether the count includes non-citizens — or the "undocumented." "In every Census since 1790, we have counted all persons who live in the country," he says. "We count residents, whether they are citizens or not." So, the answer is yes.

- The rate of growth is the slowest since the Great Depression years (when the population grew 7.3%). Census Director Robert Groves says about 60% of the increase was "natural" — from births. The other 40%, he says, was from immigration. On apportionment in the House, Census says that based on the new population estimate:

- Eight states will gain members in the House. They are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington. Ten states will lose members in the House. They are: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

[Lecom]

Hmm. Looks like the South is rising again, and the North is losing members. Not surprising, considering the Sun Belt growth during the past decade.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Lecom

Hmm. Looks like the South is rising again, and the North is losing members.

nothing new, it's been a decades-long trend now.

although, the north isn't losing people in outright numbers (the northeast & midwest had growth percentages of 3.2%, and 3.9% respectively), they're just losing in terms of relative growth to the booming south and west (14.3% & 13.8% respectively).

[Metranite]

Originally Posted by Lecom

Hmm. Looks like the South is rising again, and the North is losing members. Not surprising, considering the Sun Belt growth during the past decade.

A friend of mine called this growth the final phase of the Civil War.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Metranite

A friend of mine called this growth the final phase of the Civil War.

Your friend is an unreconstructed southerner.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Metranite

A friend of mine called this growth the final phase of the Civil War.

^ Except that the South is selling its soul in the process.

As the South "rises" it becomes less the nation of Scarlett O'Hara and Kenny Rogers and more suburban everything-looks-like-everything-else blandness, both physically and culturally, which was essentially invented by the north.

The South just happened to be very adept at it because it already had a lot of unused land and relatively small cities to begin with, just a perfect fertile ground for that northern invention to thrive. So if the South's revenge is to become particularly adept at transforming rapidly into the soulless suburban blob that seems to be permeating the rest of the nation, then yes--your friend is right.

But I'm sure that is not quite the "rise of the South" that General Lee or his contemporaries would have envisioned.

[urbanactivist]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Except that the South is selling its soul in the process.

As the South "rises" it becomes less the nation of Scarlett O'Hara and Kenny Rogers and more suburban everything-looks-like-everything-else blandness, both physically and culturally, which was essentially invented by the north.

The South just happened to be very adept at it because it already had a lot of unused land and relatively small cities to begin with, just a perfect fertile ground for that northern invention to thrive. So if the South's revenge is to become particularly adept at transforming rapidly into the soulless suburban blob that seems to be permeating the rest of the nation, then yes--your friend is right.

But I'm sure that is not quite the "rise of the South" that General Lee or his contemporaries would have envisioned.

So you're saying that suburbanization and blandness is only occurring in Southern metros, and has now ceased in the oh so sophisticated North? How much did suburban Chicagoland counties grow over the last 10 years? And uh... where do you think many of those residents moved from??

And thanks for completely ignoring all of the growth that within the urban cores of our Southern cities

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by urbanactivist

So you're saying that suburbanization and blandness is only occurring in Southern metros, and has now ceased in the oh so sophisticated North?

^ I didn't say that. Here's a line from my post, look at what's in bold:

So if the South's revenge is to become particularly adept at transforming rapidly into the soulless suburban blob that seems to be permeating the rest of the nation, then yes--your friend is right.

I never said that it "ceased in the oh so sophisticated North". To the contrary--I am frustrated by just how much of it has and continues to happen in the north.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Except that the South is selling its soul in the process.

As the South "rises" it becomes less the nation of Scarlett O'Hara and Kenny Rogers and more suburban everything-looks-like-everything-else blandness, both physically and culturally, which was essentially invented by the north.

The South just happened to be very adept at it because it already had a lot of unused land and relatively small cities to begin with, just a perfect fertile ground for that northern invention to thrive. So if the South's revenge is to become particularly adept at transforming rapidly into the soulless suburban blob that seems to be permeating the rest of the nation, then yes--your friend is right.

But I'm sure that is not quite the "rise of the South" that General Lee or his contemporaries would have envisioned.

I think you hit the irony of it all right on the head. The south is the most conservative part of the nation with people who love to talk about "rugged individualism" and yet they express it by becoming just like everyone else in an even more homogonous way than much of the rest of the country. So rugged individuality equals suburban conformity, if that isn't 1984 Orwellian brainwashing at work than I don't know what is. People sitting in a McMansion watching Fox News like everyone else in their subdivision and talking about how they love freedom and individuality when they are essentially clones of everyone else is like something out of the Night of the Living Dead, it is like we are a nation of zombies.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

I think you hit the irony of it all right on the head. The south is the most conservative part of the nation with people who love to talk about "rugged individualism" and yet they express it by becoming just like everyone else in an even more homogonous way than much of the rest of the country. So rugged individuality equals suburban conformity, if that isn't 1984 Orwellian brainwashing at work than I don't know what is. People sitting in a McMansion watching Fox News like everyone else in their subdivision and talking about how they love freedom and individuality when they are essentially clones of everyone else is like something out of the Night of the Living Dead, it is like we are a nation of zombies.

What does Orwell have to do with this? Orwell was a socialist, the American South is conservative. I find it laughably ironic when conservatives use Orwell as a defense when he is inexplicably condemning their lifestyle and ideology. Furthermore, the south has no discernable connection to the term "rugged individualism" if it is properly understood.

The term, derived from a speech of the same name by Herbert Hoover during the 1928 campaign, is a uniquely 1920s Republican mantra. The Republican Party of the 1920s was based in New York and the West, not the Democrat's Solid South. Hoover himself was from a geologist from Iowa who was the first president born west of the Mississippi river. Though Hoover is associated with coining the term, perhaps the person most widely emblematic of its core philosophy was Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt of New York. Rugged individualism is a term to describe the rough and tumble nature of the nation at that point in history, and it wasn't even an attribute given to the south.

Please do not assume that, because the south is now dominated by the a party (Republican) which has historically been associated with completely different regions, southerners have anything in common with the term. They don't. The south, by virtue of its inherent conservatism, is antithetical to the ideals of individualism. It is instead the embodiment of conservatism: the pressure to conform to and abide by the historical and cultural norms and mores of the area.

No-one in the south actually talks about rugged individualism, they talk about liberty and freedom. Liberty and freedom subconscious cues are the last political vestiges of the southern civil war perspective. In order to have individualism you must have liberty and freedom, but in order to have liberty and freedom individualism is not necessary. Do not forsake the south's polity for using their liberty and freedom to make the logical choice - at least from their perspective - of shunning individualism.

So, obviously the south is going to be less individualist than elsewhere.




Now, let's move on. This topic really has nothing to do with the 2010 Census and is counterproductive. Let us not bash others, but instead congratulate those areas which have done well this census.

[Centropolis]

If we all go back and read everything, I don't see what is controversial about what The Urban Politician said in post 1185.

I remember being a kid and visiting relatives in the mid south, coming from my very mainstream suburban culdesac, and being very aware of the sort of individualistic flair and character that everyone had down south, and the sort of laid back way people lived - gravel driveways and tireswings - and i liked it. It was very different from the sort of cold, mechanical quality of the way everything moved around me in the outer ring suburban midwest where people mowed their yards diagonally - all TUP said is that this same process of people living in massive outer ring expressway dominated suburban worlds has now taken root in the south at a sort of cultural critical mass and domination the same way it did on the fringes of midwestern cities a generation ago. This seems to be less a commentary on the south than it is a commentary on the sickness of mainstream american culture - i guess if that's offensive to anyone or you are in denial about the deep, deep problems inherent to explosive hyper auto dominated growth - i can't help you, but his argument at it's heart doesn't seem to me to be anything about bashing the south.

[MNMike]

Minnesota didn't do too bad, with a growth rate of 7.8%. That was enough so that we didn't lose a seat in congress.

[CentralGrad258]

What I find interesting is that the states in the Great Planes and Northern states in the middle of the country (Wyoming, Montana, Dakotas, etc) are gaining population at a pretty healthy rate. I thought the general trend was the emptying out of the middle states in favor of the coasts, but that just does not appear to be happening. The growth in the sunbelt is still alive and well though.

Ofcourse we still don't know where within those states the populations is shifting. To me, that is probably just as, if not more, relevant.

[10023]

Originally Posted by CentralGrad258

What I find interesting is that the states in the Great Planes and Northern states in the middle of the country (Wyoming, Montana, Dakotas, etc) are gaining population at a pretty healthy rate.

Well yeah, but if 50 people move to Wyoming that state grows by a few percent.

[10023]

In terms of shifting the balance of power politically, you've got to remember that while these shifts mean that Republican states are gaining population and political clout, they're also becoming less Republican. The growth is coming from Northern transplants, immigrants, and minorities that lean Democratic.

So this trend only provides a tailwind for the GOP until the demographics reach the magical tipping point where the "newcomers" become a plurality, at which point these states will flip entirely. Look at Virginia and North Carolina in the last election... all that growth in NoVA and Charlotte looks like it helps the Repubs, but longer term, it doesn't really.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by 10023

In terms of shifting the balance of power politically, you've got to remember that while these shifts mean that Republican states are gaining population and political clout, they're also becoming less Republican. The growth is coming from Northern transplants, immigrants, and minorities that lean Democratic.

So this trend only provides a tailwind for the GOP until the demographics reach the magical tipping point where the "newcomers" become a plurality, at which point these states will flip entirely. Look at Virginia and North Carolina in the last election... all that growth in NoVA and Charlotte looks like it helps the Repubs, but longer term, it doesn't really.

To some degree, sure. Many of these states currently are completely Republican-controlled at the state congress/governor level though, so you can bet that there will be some serious gerrymandering of any new/re-drawn districts to make sure that the effects of states becoming less Republican are minimized for years and years beyond what population shifts would indicate (Democrats do the same, of course).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 10023

In terms of shifting the balance of power politically, you've got to remember that while these shifts mean that Republican states are gaining population and political clout, they're also becoming less Republican. The growth is coming from Northern transplants, immigrants, and minorities that lean Democratic.

And the commentators are misinterpreting the political realignment happening in the "net loss" states.

Take NY State. Its losses will mean severe reapportionment in Upstate NY, which is the most Conservative and Republican part of the state. The reapportionment won't do anything to NYC's Congressional Representation.

Reapportionment happens according to an individual state's growth patterns. If one area is growing, and the other declining, the declining area will be combined, and the growing area untouched or only slightly modified.

So it is only true that these House seat losses mean a more Conservative Congress if the areas with the slowest growth happen to be Democrat-leaning. I'm not so sure this is true.

[KB0679]

Originally Posted by 10023

In terms of shifting the balance of power politically, you've got to remember that while these shifts mean that Republican states are gaining population and political clout, they're also becoming less Republican. The growth is coming from Northern transplants, immigrants, and minorities that lean Democratic.

Not in all cases. In some states, a lot of the growth is coming from retirees and suburbanites (Northern and other) who trend conservative, like in SC, Utah, and probably Arizona.

[Muskavon]

Originally Posted by 10023

In terms of shifting the balance of power politically, you've got to remember that while these shifts mean that Republican states are gaining population and political clout, they're also becoming less Republican. The growth is coming from Northern transplants, immigrants, and minorities that lean Democratic.

So this trend only provides a tailwind for the GOP until the demographics reach the magical tipping point where the "newcomers" become a plurality, at which point these states will flip entirely. Look at Virginia and North Carolina in the last election... all that growth in NoVA and Charlotte looks like it helps the Repubs, but longer term, it doesn't really.

This assumes none of these new population people actually grow up in their new environment and adopt the customs and values of the place their peers require them to. A God non-fearing wonderful socialist liberal can relocate to North Carolina if he wants. But he may have Bush kids. His risk. Not unlike expecting your kids to adopt all your customs when you come from overseas. They will get assimiliated. Maybe not your kids. But your grandkids will. And then the old man will get involved in politics when his non-NYC property taxes are about to get raised, or his property is gonna get zoned for something he doesn't like...suddenly the old man goes conservative too. Shouting at the fact he can't handle fractions of the taxes he sold his house in NYC to leave for NC for. His plan was to be "rich" off that difference as a retired muffler repair man. Because, after all, a retired muffler repair man deserves to be rich. That only happens if he sells off his northern assets and protects his southern ones.

[Architect2010]

Originally Posted by CentralGrad258

What I find interesting is that the states in the Great Planes and Northern states in the middle of the country (Wyoming, Montana, Dakotas, etc) are gaining population at a pretty healthy rate. I thought the general trend was the emptying out of the middle states in favor of the coasts, but that just does not appear to be happening. The growth in the sunbelt is still alive and well though.

Yes this is so true. Here's a population chart of Oklahoma's population from 2000-2010. It portrays exactly what you have said; this Great Plain states are growing at a healthy clip. The most recent year suggests Oklahoma is about to start adding some hefty numbers to it's population. I suspect within Oklahoma, the overwhelming majority of the growth will be within the two urban areas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

OKLAHOMA
Total Pop POPULATION Numeric change % change
April 1, 2010 ... 3,751,351 ... 64,301 ... 1.74%
July 1, 2009 ... 3,687,050 ... 43,025 ... 1.18%
July 1, 2008 ... 3,644,025 ... 31,839 ... 0.88%
July 1, 2007 ... 3,612,186 ... 37,852 ... 1.06%
July 1, 2006 ... 3,574,334 ... 41,565 ... 1.18%
July 1, 2005 ... 3,532,769 ... 18,320 ... 0.52%
July 1, 2004 ... 3,514,449 ... 15,762 ... 0.45%
July 1, 2003 ... 3,498,687 ... 13,933 ... 0.40%
July 1, 2002 ... 3,484,754 ... 20,025 ... 0.58%
July 1, 2001 ... 3,464,729 ... 10,786 ... 0.31%
July 1, 2000 ... 3,453,943...