The US Census Bureau thread

[JManc]

Originally Posted by craigs

I finished my count.

Some 1,761,372 residents of Los Angeles County live in Census tracts with population densities of 20,000+ persons per square mile.

I've got a 57 page Google doc with the number, density, tract population and land area of each tract. Tedious!

You could have just said a lot of people in high density areas in LA and we would have believed you.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by JManc

You could have just said a lot of people in high density areas in LA and we would have believed you.

I crunch the numbers like this every decade--I did something similar roughly 20 years ago for LA, and this same thing 10 years ago for the Bay Area--tradition!

[memph]

Originally Posted by craigs

I crunch the numbers like this every decade--I did something similar roughly 20 years ago for LA, and this same thing 10 years ago for the Bay Area--tradition!

Do you still have those old numbers for the LA population living in 20k+ ppsm tracts?

[memph]

Looks like Jackson, MS is the only city with 100k+ residents to experience a higher % population loss than Detroit? Not too surprised though, the city's core is in a really sad state. But it does change the narrative of this sort of decline being only a Rust Belt thing.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

P.S. The life insurance negotiated where I work has one of those genetic tests for free. Aside not been that much interested on this subject, mine would be quite bland. It would probably be 100% Iberian, so it's not that exciting.

All the more to do it, I think! You should do it and see what you really are!

Your family didn't just magically appear in Iberia; ancient humans migrated everywhere. Iberian Peninsula... so, you might find out you're part Celtic, North African, Jewish, even Germanic. Didn't the Goths move into the Iberian Peninsula? You could be anything, really.

I've watched Youtube videos of Koreans acting SHOCKED when they find out they're part Chinese, Japanese, Central Asian, etc. I'm like "DUUUUUUHH!!!" Koreans are so insular and think they never mixed with other people; it's like they think that Koreans just magically appeared out of nowhere on the Korean peninsula. Why wouldn't they think that they migrated there from somewhere else or mixed with other peoples, a long long time ago? Humans came out of Africa after all, and migrated, and mixed with other prehistoric early humans... it's all so fascinating. Makes me wish I studied anthropology.

Myself, learning about my own DNA ancestry, it made me think of the old trade routes/spice trade, and even the transpacific slave trade. Me being Filipino but having some south Indian/Sri Lankan ancestry, it makes me wonder if I'm a Sepoy descendent. When the British invaded Manila in the mid-1700s, they had some Sepoy (Indian) soldiers with them too.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by craigs

I finished my count.

Some 1,761,372 residents of Los Angeles County live in Census tracts with population densities of 20,000+ persons per square mile.

I've got a 57 page Google doc with the number, density, tract population and land area of each tract. Tedious!

I am in awe. I'm halfway through a summation also over 20k ppsm for Chicago (60,680 in the suburbs, 176,085 on the South Side past Cermak, 215,348 on the West Side south of North Avenue, with the denser parts of the city still to go) and without a sortable CSV it is indeed tedious.

[edale]

I was just looking at the 2010 vs 2020 comparison for LA County, and one thing really jumped out at me. LA County's white population declined by 1.7 million! That seems like an astounding decline. By percentage, the white population dropped from 50% to 33%.

I believe the white population is declining, and probably a lot of it is moving to Orange and Riverside Counties. But I have to think some of this is census methodology changing. The amount of people responding "two or more" rose by a million, from 400,000 to 1.4M. Seems like these might be related.

But LA County became less white, less Black, more Asian, and more multi racial/other.

Looking at the map of tracts that grew vs declined, it's pretty clear the Valley + DTLA is responsible for most of the city's population gain. Gentrifying areas such as Highland Park, Echo Park, and East Hollywood all saw big declines, despite increases in development. No doubt a reflection of smaller households, as crowded immigrant neighborhoods transition. Hollywood saw some impressive growth, same with some Westside pockets. South LA was a bit of a mixed bag.

Cool tool to check out: https://data.indystar.com/census/total-p...los-angeles-county-california/050-06037/

[craigs]

Originally Posted by memph

Do you still have those old numbers for the LA population living in 20k+ ppsm tracts?

No, I'm afraid I don't. I had a laptop crash on me in the times before the cloud, and that was that. I'm pretty sure we can eventually figure out a way to compare 2010 to 2020, though.

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

I am in awe. I'm halfway through a summation also over 20k ppsm for Chicago (~550,000 south of Madison, probably 800k+ left), and without a sortable CSV it is indeed tedious.

Yeah, I just used the map and had to click on every dark shaded tract since the cutoff is 10,000+ ppsm. The worst part was my husband got pissed last night because I stayed at it until about 11:30--but hey, I was on vacation when the data first was released and I had been anticipating wrestling with the data for days!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by memph

Looks like Jackson, MS is the only city with 100k+ residents to experience a higher % population loss than Detroit? Not too surprised though, the city's core is in a really sad state. But it does change the narrative of this sort of decline being only a Rust Belt thing.

I've made this argument for like a decade on this forum, and it has become even more clear in recent years, but Detroit's steep population decline isn't really economic. It's bad policy. But many of the bad policy decisions are beyond Detroit's control. Metro Detroit has quite a lot more people today than it did when Detroit had a population of 1.8 million.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by SpawnOfVulcan

I have a similar story myself. When I was a kid, my hair was practically white and I had very blue eyes. Now, my hair is a dark brown and my eyes are blue-green. When I did 23andme it came back with a small amount of Senegambian ancestry. Interestingly, my brother's came back with Congolese ancestry, no Senegambian.

It's common to not share the exact genetic makeup with a sibling; scientists say that this was so that (I know it's gross) you can mate with a sibling, back in prehistoric times in early humanity.

Did your parents do 23andme too? My parents did, and my sister has some Chinese Dai DNA, but I don't. My dad has the Chinese Dai (as well as Thai/Khmer/Indonesian), so that's where she got it from. My mom has no Chinese Dai or Thai/Khmer/Indonesian, but she does have some Japanese/Korean DNA, which both my sister and I share. My mom does not have any south Indian/Sri Lankan, but my sister and I both do, and we got that from my dad, who also showed up as having south Indian/Sri Lankan in his genes.

It's all very fascinating.

[craigs]

Some 1,832,775 people live in Census tracts with population densities of 20,000+ ppsm in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA.

The MSA encompasses Los Angeles and Orange counties.

[mhays]

That's an impressive LA number.

Seattle is predictably a fraction of that. I count 147,477 within city limits at densities of 20,000 or higher (almost precisely 20%), plus 9,060 in Bellevue. That was it for the metro.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Also, this should underscore the point about Michigan's terrible land management, since the state is home to over 1/4 of the cities on this list.

While I'm sure shitty land management plays a role too, there's a bigger commonality connecting all of the cities on the "biggest losers" list: RUST BELT.

that is not a coincidence.

Originally Posted by benp

2020 updates with 2020 population gains in GREEN and cities with 2020 population losses in RED:


City................................Peak..........2020......Percentage Drop

Highland Park, MI.............52,959..........8,977.......83.0%
East St. Louis, IL.............82,366...........18,469......77.6%
Johnstown, PA................67, 327..........18,411......72.7%
McKeesport, PA...............55,355...........17,727......68.0%
Detroit, MI.....................1,849,568.......639,111.....65.4%
St. Louis, MO..................856,796.........301,578.....64.8%
Youngstown, OH..............170,002.........60,068.......64.7%
Gary, IN.........................178,320.........69,093.......61.3%
Cleveland, OH.................914,808.........372,624......59.3%
Flint, MI.........................196,940.........81,252.......58.7%
Wheeling, WV..................61,659...........27,052......56.1%
Pittsburgh, PA.................676,806.........302,971.....55.2%
Saginaw, MI....................98,265..........44,202.......55.0%
East Chicago, IN..............57,669...........26,370......54.3%
Niagara Falls, NY..............102,394.........48,671.......52.5%
Buffalo, NY.....................580,132.........278,349......52.0%
Chester, PA......................66,039............32,605........50.6%
Hamtramck, MI................56,268...........28,433.......49.5%
Wilkes-Barre, PA..............86,626..........44,328.......48.8%

[dc_denizen]

Detroit has a good mayor and Dan Gilbert

Still the losses continue

Part of the issue seems to have been related to higher tax assessments and more aggressive collection . A lot of people vacated who couldn’t pay , and now their homes are empty or demolished . This seems to have been a horrible and unnecessary policy given the city had just written off its debts

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.freep.com/amp/6555328002

They should just allow Dearborn to annex western Detroit and move 100,000 Afghans there

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by edale

I was just looking at the 2010 vs 2020 comparison for LA County, and one thing really jumped out at me. LA County's white population declined by 1.7 million! That seems like an astounding decline. By percentage, the white population dropped from 50% to 33%.

I think something is off with your 2010 numbers.

CA became a majority minority-state around 2000. I cannot believe that LA county was still majority white in 2010. It should have one of the lower white proportions of any major CA urban county. I don't think even Orange County was 50% white in 2010.

And LA city's white population seems pretty stable, and that's 40% of LA County. It would mean that LA County outside LA city basically had a mass evacuation of whites, Armenians and Persians included.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Detroit has a good mayor and Dan Gilbert

Still the losses continue

A good mayor and a nice downtown don't fix the cost-benefit analysis for black households.

Again, Detroit, despite the positive core momentum, is still a REALLY troubled city. I should show Streetviews all day, showing the disintegration of neighborhoods in the last decade. Retail corridors going from blighted to eviscerated.

[Boisebro]

Originally Posted by memph

Looks like Jackson, MS is the only city with 100k+ residents to experience a higher % population loss than Detroit? Not too surprised though, the city's core is in a really sad state. But it does change the narrative of this sort of decline being only a Rust Belt thing.

that is surprising, particularly since capital cities are typically healthy when it comes to population.

makes me wonder how all 50 capital cities fared in the last 10 years. seems as though capital cities like Austin, Madison, Boise, De Moines, Sacramento, etc. have all been trending upward.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by mhays

That's an impressive LA number.

Seattle is predictably a fraction of that. I count 147,477 within city limits at densities of 20,000 or higher (almost precisely 20%), plus 9,060 in Bellevue. That was it for the metro.

I tallied 10,000/sm densities for Seattle as well.

Within city limits, I get 394,106 living at 10,000/sm or more. If I recall that's more than double the number from the last census. A lot of it was infill in tracts that weren't far off before.

Elsewhere in the metro I get 104,260 people.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think something is off with your 2010 numbers.

CA became a majority minority-state around 2000. I cannot believe that LA county was still majority white in 2010. It should have one of the lower white proportions of any major CA urban county. I don't think even Orange County was 50% white in 2010.

And LA city's white population seems pretty stable, and that's 40% of LA County. It would mean that LA County outside LA city basically had a mass evacuation of whites, Armenians and Persians included.

Looking at the data again, Hispanics weren't separated out in the racial categories. So I think a big portion of the white decline is white Hispanics selecting "2 or more" or possibly "other" in 2020 when they selected white in 2010. Both of those categories saw large increases while white and black decreased. The percent of LA County that's Hispanic is basically unchanged from 2010-- roughly 48%.

[edale]

Originally Posted by craigs

Some 1,832,775 people live in Census tracts with population densities of 20,000+ ppsm in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA.

The MSA encompasses Los Angeles and Orange counties.

I'd love to see a map of this! In addition to a large concentration in central LA, I imagine there are other 20k clusters in Long Beach and Santa Ana. And I bet a fair amount of these tracts are not especially 'urban' looking or pedestrian friendly.