The US Census Bureau thread

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by benp

To sum it all up - who the hell knows what the real numbers will show in 2030.

The truest truth in the history of truth.

[The North One]

Except official counts were also completely off, especially if you're a hard to count city where people don't trust giving information to the census.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by benp

Yeah, there's something screwy about how they calculate estimates. In my Census Tract, for instance, which is a very stable neighborhood in North Buffalo primarily of doubles, singles, and a few apartments, a change between the last 2 ACS estimates showed a drop of 582 residents, or 12.5% of the tract population!

There is no way that our neighborhood saw a sudden 12.5% drop, or maybe any drop at all. Home sales are brisk, few vacancies, many new children. The neighborhood is fully built out, and there have been zero properties torn down or taken off the market. Knowing the neighborhood, the change in occupancy numbers makes no sense.

When looking at other tracts, it looks like many of these numbers were pulled out of a hat. Some tracts show double digit percentage changes up, others double digit down.

Regarding housing, my best estimate is that just over 3000 new units were completed in the city limits since 2020. The latest ACS estimates for Buffalo show an increase of over 4000 new units, with an increase of 4,228 occupied housing units since 2020. Based on the increase in occupied units, it would certainly be expected to be reflected in an associated population increase. For reference, in 2020 there was an increase of 6583 units, an average of 2.6 people per new unit added. If that per-person number is applied to the latest ACS estimates, it would total about 11,000 new residents since 2020.

As I stated when the 2020 Census results came out, I think that the Census estimators have a difficult time estimating population of cities with high vacancy rates, as their algorithms primarily base population changes on "new" units rather that re-occupation of long-vacant units. Per the last estimates prior to 2020, Buffalo was expected to have lost around 5000, but the actual count showed a gain of 17,000 - an error of 23,000.

To sum it all up - who the hell knows what the real numbers will show in 2030.

Yeah, you would definitely notice that much of a drop in your neighborhood.

If anything, your photos cataloguing the city of Buffalo over the years has shown a city (and county) getting healthier, bit by bit, one rehabilitation or new build at a time with each passing year.

[benp]

Originally Posted by The North One

Except official counts were also completely off, especially if you're a hard to count city where people don't trust giving information to the census.

Thing is, yearly estimates are based on changes from the 10-year baseline numbers. What is looked yearly at are birth/death records, IRS county-to-county moving records, ACS state-to-county records, and a series of random surveys. The 10-year Census is the only time that a full house-to-house count is performed. The yearly estimates only measure changes seen. And, they are based on sampling, limited actual data, and incomplete data (such as only taxpayers are included in IRS data, official change of address must be filed for moving data, birth/death records may not be available below county level, etc).

Any flaws in the 10-year count are only magnified by the yearly estimates. The 10-year count is the only attempt to physically locate and count every single residence.

[mhays]

The counts don't count everyone. Both have their issues. The count is probably more accurate than the estimates but it's not perfect either.

[PhillyRising]

I imagine the data for these numbers came mostly when Biden was in office. It will be interesting to see them next year with this regime making up whatever and saying people are now "fleeing" certain cities and going to ones more politically aligned with them.

The only hope for 2030 is a Democrat will be back in charge and therefore it will be done properly.

I'm just so happy Detroit is finally starting to turn it around.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by IcedCowboyCoffee

Here are the 50 largest cities sorted by their growth rates. Every city here has 400k+ populations.

Miami city, Florida 3.47%
Charlotte city, North Carolina 2.55%
Fort Worth city, Texas 2.38%
Seattle city, Washington 2.20%
Washington city, District of Columbia 2.17%
Las Vegas city, Nevada 1.84%
Houston city, Texas 1.84%
Raleigh city, North Carolina 1.78%
Jacksonville city, Florida 1.65%
San Antonio city, Texas 1.59%
Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee 1.54%
San Jose city, California 1.39%
Columbus city, Ohio 1.38%
Louisville/Jefferson, Kentucky 1.37%
Atlanta city, Georgia 1.34%
Boston city, Massachusetts 1.33%
Oklahoma City city, Oklahoma 1.19%
Tampa city, Florida 1.17%
Sacramento city, California 1.13%
Detroit city, Michigan 1.06%
Denver city, Colorado 1.06%
New York city, New York 1.04%
San Francisco city, California 1.02%
Phoenix city, Arizona 1.02%
Oakland city, California 0.93%
Kansas City city, Missouri 0.93%
Chicago city, Illinois 0.82%
Los Angeles city, California 0.81%
Tucson city, Arizona 0.74%
San Diego city, California 0.71%
Bakersfield city, California 0.69%
Dallas city, Texas 0.68%
Philadelphia city, Pennsylvania 0.68%
Indianapolis city (balance), Indiana 0.64%
Arlington city, Texas 0.62%
Mesa city, Arizona 0.61%
Fresno city, California 0.52%
Omaha city, Nebraska 0.51%
Minneapolis city, Minnesota 0.47%
Colorado Springs city, Colorado 0.46%
Austin city, Texas 0.40%
Tulsa city, Oklahoma 0.27%
Virginia Beach city, Virginia 0.23%
Portland city, Oregon 0.23%
Baltimore city, Maryland 0.13%
Milwaukee city, Wisconsin 0.09%
El Paso city, Texas 0.02%
Albuquerque city, New Mexico -0.14%
Long Beach city, California -0.19%
Memphis city, Tennessee -0.60%

i dont care if growth is slow, a win is a win!

[mhays]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

I imagine the data for these numbers came mostly when Biden was in office. It will be interesting to see them next year with this regime making up whatever and saying people are now "fleeing" certain cities and going to ones more politically aligned with them.

The only hope for 2030 is a Democrat will be back in charge and therefore it will be done properly.

I'm just so happy Detroit is finally starting to turn it around.

Agreed...between staffing reductions, idiots in charge, and and potential funny business this could go very badly in 2030.

[jayden]

Aside from cities like Houston, wouldn't "growth" for most of these cities be gaining back what they lost during covid?

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by jayden

Aside from cities like Houston, wouldn't "growth" for most of these cities be gaining back what they lost during covid?

That is if they actually lost people in the first place. I don't know a soul who decided to up and move during the pandemic because they could work wherever remotely.

If people did move, it obviously wasn't a permanent situation.

[benp]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

That is if they actually lost people in the first place. I don't know a soul who decided to up and move during the pandemic because they could work wherever remotely.

If people did move, it obviously wasn't a permanent situation.

It wasn't just people moving to and from cities. People were dying at much higher rates than previous years.

[JManc]

As for all those people moving to Houston, we'd be happy to send them your way. And feel free to take a million or so already here if you want.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

While I agree comparing the "legacy" city boundaries of Cincinnati and Cleveland isn't comparable to the annexation boundaries of Columbus, it is notable that of all the annexation-happy cities in the United States, Columbus is doing quite well, density-wise.

2024 Top 25 Cities (Annexation-Happy ones, not like NYC or Chicago or something):

San Jose (178 sq mi) = 5,603
Las Vegas (141 sq mi) = 4,815
San Diego (325 sq mi) = 4,321
Columbus (220 sq mi) = 4,242
Dallas (339 sq mi) = 3,911
Houston (640 sq mi) = 3,734
Phoenix (518 sq mi) = 3,230
Austin (319 sq mi) = 3,114
San Antonio (498 sq mi) = 3,065
Charlotte (308 sq mi) = 3,063
Fort Worth (347 sq mi) = 2,905
El Paso (258 sq mi) = 2,642
Indianapolis (361 sq mi) = 2,469
Nashville (475 sq mi) = 1,484
Jacksonville (747 sq mi) = 1,351
Oklahoma City (606 sq mi) = 1,176

Dividing population by square miles is such a bad way to determine population density. The website ZipAtlas https://zipatlas.com has interactive zip code maps for cities with the density for each zip code. Much better (IMO) for determining what cities are really like.

Since Houston is my home town, I'll use it as an example. According to ZipAtlas, there are 59 zip codes in Houston with higher densities than the average of 3,734 per square mile listed above.
https://zipatlas.com/us/tx/houston/z...oogle_vignette

The top 20 are:


Interesting (to me, at least) to compare Houston to Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.

[iheartthed]

^Zip codes can vary widely in population and geographic area so it is not as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as average density. We tend to use census tract density around here because those have more uniform populations, but even that's not perfect.

[edale]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

^Zip codes can vary widely in population and geographic area so it is not as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as average density. We tend to use census tract density around here because those have more uniform populations, but even that's not perfect.

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. For this info to be useful, we'd need to see how many people are in each zip code at the very least. A map of them would also be helpful to show geographic spread of the densities.

What'd be most helpful in terms of understanding density in a city is the number of people living at or above certain density thresholds, and what percentage of the total city those populations represent.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by edale

A map of them would also be helpful to show geographic spread of the densities.

There are maps:

• Video Link

• Video Link

[craigs]

The Los Angeles map is missing more than a third of the population.

[mhays]

You can see 4/1/20 numbers at https://maps.geo.census.gov/ddmv/map.html.

The map increments only go to 10,000/sm. However you can click and see the actual numbers for each tract.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by craigs

The Los Angeles map is missing more than a third of the population.

That's partially because I only captured the central part of the map for the video. You will notice how much higher the densities are than the 8K average for the whole city. Which is my point.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by mhays

You can see 4/1/20 numbers at https://maps.geo.census.gov/ddmv/map.html.

The map increments only go to 10,000/sm. However you can click and see the actual numbers for each tract.

Cool! Though it does take a lot of zooming in to find it.

Edited to add: Those maps are great for showing the vast areas of sparsely-populated land that drag the overall density averages down.