The US Census Bureau thread

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by muertecaza

I
I don't think we're at "peak Phoenix" yet. For now, the local river/reservoir system (Gila/Salt) is full, and the ongoing negotiations and mitigation efforts, plus a good couple years of rain/snow with the Colorado system, seem to have at least stabilized reservoir levels and brought them back up from the lows of 2022 to the 30-year historical average. So I think population will continue to grow in the 10-year timeframe. Harder to say at 20 years though.

Assuming nothing changes "peak" phoenix before the population stabilizes and goes into slow growth mode I think is probably around 7 or 8 million with the Tucson being ~2 million. The smaller cities and towns around the state depending on their economic fortunes probably about ~2 million round the whole state out somewhere around 12 million.

The state is very forward-thinking with-it water plans so that isn't really a problem.

However as others have said things change faster than we realize so who knows. There could be another Baby Boom, or a war? or a plague? Or the widespread adoption of fusion energy?

If you told somebody in 1800 how big even "small" cities are now it would bogle their minds. Sow who knows. Maybe in 50 years the US population will be 600 million and Phoenix will have a population of 10 million?!? Maybe places that right now are meaningless backwaters like Yuma or Sacaton blow up and shoot to the top of the list due to some unforeseen recourse discovery?

Making hard predictions too far in advance are guaranteed to fail because life changes very quickly despite our biases and flawed memories.

Fun exercise, pick any date and go backward or forward 20 or 25 years and imagine explaining the world and all that had happened (or would happen) in those coming decades to somebody. You can do this for any date.

They would think you were completely insane.

[ssiguy]

Every Canadian city would kill to have growth rates as slow as the US ones. I don't think there is a city over 200,000 in Canada that is growing by LESS than 2% a year. Canada grew by 3.2% last year and Greater Toronto grew by 250,000. Calgary and Edmonton are both growing at a numbing 5% a year. Montreal is growing at over 100k a year and Vancouver 70k. This is why Canada has such a housing crisis and tens of thousands living on the streets every night.

[dave8721]

Looks like the Census still has issues with counting immigrant communities:

https://wsvn.com/news/local/florida/...e-2020-census/

Almost 10% of Florida’s youngest children were missed during the 2020 census


Children age 4 and under in Florida were undercounted by almost 10% during the 2020 census, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau said the estimated error was the largest undercount of young children by any U.S. state.

More than 112,000 children age 4 or younger were overlooked in Florida during the 2020 tally which helps determine federal funding and political power every 10 years, according to Demographic Analysis estimates using administrative records to estimate the population’s size.

The Demographic Analysis is one of the tools the Census Bureau uses to calculate how good a job it did of counting every U.S. resident during a census that determines how many congressional seats each state gets.

Vermont had the smallest undercount of young children during the 2020 census, with a negligible rate of 0.02%, the equivalent of six children.

[Austin55]

City level numbers should be out this month. Does the census release the exact date ahead of time or do they just drop when they drop?

[jaxg8r1]

I believe they should be out Thursday morning (or actually the embargo ends Thursday at midnight).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Looks like the Census still has issues with counting immigrant communities:

The CB seems to struggle with anything that isn't traditional nuclear families living individually in detached suburban houses.

[DetroitMan]

Although it's just a one year estimate, its nice to see Detroit growing again.

'Detroit is a vibrant and growing city again'; population grows for first time since 1957

Detroit’s population declined consistently through the last several decades, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau — until this week.

Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration publicly fought the federal agency’s count of Detroit residents and sued the Census Bureau multiple times seeking what the city considers accurate figures. He has even described the agency as a “national clown show” for previously reporting a decrease in the city’s population estimates. But new figures show Detroit grew from 631,366 in 2022 to 633,218 residents in 2023, according to the bureau’s annual population estimate released Thursday.

“This is the news we’ve been waiting for 10 years,” Duggan said. "This is the first time since 1957 that the Census Bureau has put Detroit in the category of a growing city in population, so it probably means more to our national brand than the NFL draft did. Many big cities in the country have been losing population year after year. To have Detroit be growing is a pretty major change."

Detroit reached its highest population point of nearly 2 million in 1950. Amid the lawsuits, the city dived into ways to understand how the bureau arrives at its estimates. Officials were upset after the 2020 decennial census revealed a population decline of 10.5% in Detroit, numbers that Kurt Metzger, founder of Data Driven Detroit, called "abysmal and problematic." Although Metzger said he has not seen a population increase in Detroit since 1957, the bureau has been penalizing the city for its demolitions.

'The city has never gotten credit for rehab'
"What we've been arguing is the city doesn’t demolish buildings that were occupied. There are buildings that were unoccupied and uninhabitable for years in many cases. Just because we're demolishing, does not mean we should lose population," Metzger said.

The city's latest lawsuit argues that for each demolished structure, the agency subtracts about two residents from its population estimate. "There's been a lot of work at the city level to look at those homes that were demolished. What was their status prior? Were they occupied?" Metzger said. "The city has never gotten credit for rehab. A lot of the work coming through the (Detroit) Land Bank (Authority), where you have homes that were fixed up and sold. There's been a lot of work done to better understand how the bureau works with housing, and get the bureau to understand what's going on in the city. "The city challenged the 2021 and 2022 population estimates, to which the agency responded by increasing its figures. Numbers can fluctuate year after year. Population estimates come via a third-party data program through the federal agency that does not involve surveying respondents but uses administrative data sources to create estimates, according to Kristina Barrett, spokesperson for the Census Bureau.

"These third-party data sources include vital statistics data for government agencies, Medicare, IRA, etc. We have a set deadline for data in order to produce estimates according to our schedule. Sometimes these data do not reach us in time to be included in our release. This is why we revise previous year's data. Only the previous year is revised if needed," Barrett said in an email.

Michigan population surprise
Said Duggan, "They added 11,000 to last year, but the more important thing is they reported that we grew by 1,800 last year, even over and above that. For many years, Detroit led Michigan in population loss. In 2023, Detroit led Michigan in population gain. That’s something I never thought I’d see." The state's population grew last year by 3,980 people, up 0.04% from 2022 to 10,037,261, according to the Census Bureau. However, Michigan's total population remains lower than it was in 2020 when the decennial census recorded 10,077,331 residents.

Metzger has predicted population increases for several years, though the city is often "dinged by these demolitions," he said.

"I'm thinking the city is somewhere between 650,000 to 670,000 (residents). I'm not putting us back at 700,000 yet," Metzger said, adding that he bases his data on housing-related numbers.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...s/73701788007/

[Innsertnamehere]

Almost surreal to think Detroit has finally reversed its decline- in some ways it felt like the day would never come.

You definitely feel it in the city too. The city still has lots of problems, but many areas have an energy and growth that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

[DCReid]

Link to the US Census press release:

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pres...estimates.html


Atlanta grew by 12,000 in one year and DC rebounded with an 8,000 increase

[shivtim]

^ Port St. Lucie in the top 5 by absolute growth is wild.

[Steely Dan]

Source: https://www.rd.com/article/take-it-w...grain-of-salt/

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Almost surreal to think Detroit has finally reversed its decline- in some ways it felt like the day would never come.

You definitely feel it in the city too. The city still has lots of problems, but many areas have an energy and growth that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

cleveland finally stopped the bleeding people too, so thats good.

[Atlas]

Salt Lake City up to 209,593, up almost 10k from 2020

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by shivtim

^ Port St. Lucie in the top 5 by absolute growth is wild.

I suspect, it's like Texas, sprawl to empty land where they can build big and less expensive single family homes. In this case, south FL sprawl north to the next closest and much cheaper metro, although it's 50 miles away, as not much empty land in the Miami to Palm Beach corridor. Any new SFH in south FL seems to be around $1 million and up. Plain, small and old houses in some areas can be $750K and up after they renovate, like Wiltons Manors. I suspect much of the outflow migration from Miami-Palm Beach is to that metro... I am surprised that the Villages is not on that list.

[eschaton]

It's interesting to note that with only a few exceptions, the rapidly-shrinking cities (according to the Census) are now mega-suburbs in metro areas, not traditional urban cities, which have mostly returned to growth.

Only "real cities" projected to have shrunk considerably are New Orleans, St. Louis, Jackson (MS), Shreveport, Philadelphia, NYC, Baton Rouge, Montgomery, Portland (OR), Baltimore, Norfolk (VA), Boise, and Rochester (NY). Most of them are cities with large black populations.

I absolutely do not believe NYC lost 77,000 people in one year. There is no evidence for this at all in real estate.

[Crawford]

It's highly unlikely Detroit is gaining population. And no freaking way "leading MI in population gain". That's absurd. That would be places like Traverse City area, or exurban Grand Rapids. The Detroit outer neighborhoods are still disappearing. You can see the homes & businesses evaporate, just on Streetview. There are no sizable immigrant inflows. 95%+ of housing permits are outside the city proper.

I have no idea what's going on with Census annual estimates. There's no way they cannot refine their methodologies.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I absolutely do not believe NYC lost 77,000 people in one year. There is no evidence for this at all in real estate.

We're gonna need a bigger salt shaker.....


An extreme moment of shark-jumping in CB estimates history.

[Crawford]

If the Census estimates are accurate, and the Homeland Security migrant counts are accurate, that would mean that absent the migrant surge, NYC lost around 250,000 people in one year.

So that would be basically three times the population losses of the worst years of the 1970's, when the city was burning down, vacancies were at all-time highs, and you could snag a coop on Fifth Ave. for 70k. Assuming rates stay constant, it would mean the city population would be 0 in most of our lifetimes.

When the Census comes out with a population of 0, and vacancy rates are still at record lows, will they then maybe bother to look at their methodology?

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I suspect, it's like Texas, sprawl to empty land where they can build big and less expensive single family homes. In this case, south FL sprawl north to the next closest and much cheaper metro, although it's 50 miles away, as not much empty land in the Miami to Palm Beach corridor. Any new SFH in south FL seems to be around $1 million and up. Plain, small and old houses in some areas can be $750K and up after they renovate, like Wiltons Manors. I suspect much of the outflow migration from Miami-Palm Beach is to that metro... I am surprised that the Villages is not on that list.

True! I live on the border of Wilton Manors & Oakland Park

[The North One]

Detroit officially seeing growth is not surprising at all. It's had that trend for a long time now so it tracks. It's probably been in the positive since about 2019, the busted census just finally picked up on it. Most neighborhoods saw lots of vacant land bank homes renovated and occupied in 2020, which is well documented. And now new construction infill is starting to be seen in most of the city.