The US Census Bureau thread

[urbanactivist]

Originally Posted by LMich

Surprised no one commented on the shocking difference between the city numbers for Arizona. We knew with the release of the state numbers, last week, that Arizona was among the most overestimated states, but I didn't think the numbers for the big cities would be so far off. The numbers for Phoenix city and metro will leave Philly firmly in fifth place as a municipality, and Detroit was not passed by Phoenix, last decade, in metropolitan population.

BTW, look at some of these slow down for big (and matured) city propers in the sunbelt:

Phoenix:

1970: 581,572 32.4%
1980: 789,704 35.8%
1990: 983,403 24.5%
2000: 1,321,045 34.3%
2010: 1,445,632 9.4%

Dallas:

1970: 844,401 24.2%
1980: 904,078 7.1%
1990: 1,006,877 11.4%
2000: 1,188,580 18.0%
2010: 1,197,816 0.7%

Houston:

1970: 1,232,802 31.4%
1980: 1,595,138 29.4%
1990: 1,630,553 2.2%
2000: 1,953,631 19.8%
2010: 2,099,451 7.5%

And, these are cities with relatively huge land areas, to boot.

Interesting observations, but I think it's still a bit too general. Look at economic differences within each city. As we all know, Phoenix's economy has been powered primarily by home construction and suburbanization. It was also one of the hardest hit in the nation from the housing bust. Thus the dramatic and shocking slowdown to its growth between 2000 and 2010.

Houston OTOH is buffered by oil prices, plain and simple. When they're up, the city's up. As you can tell between '80 and '90 the oil bust happened, which dried up the city's growth to almost nothing. Oil is still probably the biggest player in our economy, but the Med. Center is inching closer and closer to even with oil and energy. During this decade, oil prices have had some very wild swings, but the Houston area has continued to grow with some of the most steady real estate prices in the country. So oil is a major but waning factor for the slowdown in this metro's growth.

Among the 3 examples Dallas probably has the most "balanced" economy... not too dominated by one group. But it is in Texas so suburbanization plays a major role there. It's just that the suburbs are literally swelling around it, and forcing the city itself to infill. If you check out pictures of the Dallas skyline in 2000 and 2010, the difference is almost as striking as that of Austin. So infill (and subsequent pricing out of the poor, traditional minorities "skipping" the city, etc.) is the name of the game here.

So the maturation is definitely there in each case, but it's not all for the exact same reasons.

[edluva]

Originally Posted by alex1

the whole point is funding. Especially during these times, when most cities are running huge deficits and property taxes are on the downswing.

yeah, i was being a tad rhetorical. he sounded more motivated by bragging rights.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

I think Chicago hit bottom in this census of 2010. The 2000 census proved that the city can increase in population and in 2010 there was a unique set of circumstances that won't be moving forward. The question is will there be stability or outright significant growth moving forward in Chicago.

While most forumers were expecting growth in Chicago this time due to the residential skyscraper boom, I had read the articles about the evaporation of the working class neighborhoods that are far away from Michigan ave, Lincoln park, old town etc... I expect that to continue but to tail off by the end of the decade and then stability and then growth. The demoing of high-rise public housing had been going on since the early 90s and had little impact on the population numbers in 2010. Most of the people who were legitimately there were relocated within the city before the demo.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

The demoing of high-rise public housing had been going on since the early 90s and had little impact on the population numbers in 2010. Most of the people who were legitimately there were relocated within the city before the demo.

Dude, get your facts straight: this is not true at all.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

Dude, get your facts straight: this is not true at all.

Dude, know your Chicago history. Wallace vs the CHA.

ANd again, look at the map that shows the population loss. Do you really believe every one of those neighborhoods had high rise public housing torn down in the 2000s.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

Dude, know your Chicago history. Wallace vs the CHA.

ANd again, look at the map that shows the population loss. Do you really believe every one of those neighborhoods had high rise public housing torn down in the 2000s.

Most were indeed demolished post 2000.

Many of the largest ie RTH, Cabrini were demolished in the last decade and not in the 90's. CU is off by a decade. He seems like he just likes to rile things up for the sake of starting a flame war for some reason or another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green


Status . Just reciently [ or just about being done ] Demolished .

In February 2006, a unique partnership between CHA, Holsten, Kimball Hill Urban Centers and the Cabrini–Green LAC Community Development Corporation began a 790-unit, $250-million redevelopment of the 18-acre (73,000 m2) Cabrini Extension site, to be called Parkside at Old Town. Plans for the demolition and redevelopment of Green Homes are still under negotiation, while the original Cabrini rowhouses are currently undergoing rehabilitation.

The Plan for Transformation's relocation process was the subject of a lawsuit, Wallace v. Chicago Housing Authority, which alleged that many residents were hastily forced into substandard, "temporary" housing in other slums, did not receive promised social services during or after the move, and were often denied the promised opportunity to return to the redeveloped sites.[13] The lawsuit was settled in June 2006, as the parties agreed to two relocation programs for current and former CHA residents: (1) CHA's current relocation program, encouraging moves to racially integrated areas of metropolitan Chicago and providing for case-managed social services, would be applied to families initially moving from public housing; and (2) an agreed-upon modified program run by CHA's voucher administrator, CHAC Inc., would encourage former CHA residents to relocate to economically and racially integrated communities as well as give them increased access to social services.[14]

Some former CHA residents have moved out of Chicago to nearby suburbs such as Harvey or to other housing developments in nearby cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes

Demolished 2007


At one time, it was the largest public housing development in the country, and it was intended to offer decent affordable housing. It was composed of 28 high-rise buildings with 16 stories each, with a total of 4,321 apartments.

...

HOPE VI federal funds were granted specifically for off-site Taylor replacement housing. The Chicago Housing Authority moved out all residents by the end of 2005. On 8 March 2007, the last remaining building was demolished.

[Chase Unperson]

Yes many of the CG residents were relocated in the 90s.

It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the people from RT and CG and other high rise housing projects were relocated within the city of Chicago prior to their destruction. It wasn't like Chicago waited until all the people happened to be out of the building, put a lock on the door, then knocked it down, and told the people to fuck off and move to Atlanta. They relocated the people within Chicago before demolishing the high-rises.

The population decline doesn't come from the destruction of RT or CG it comes from the disappearance of blue collar jobs in the city. The neighborhoods that used to be home to the old Steel Works factory have gone done by 70% since the closing in the 90s. Those people will continue to slowly dribble and they will not be replaced by new immigrants who have been choosing the burbs for the last ten years.

Know your Chicago History. I recommend you go to the Chicago History Museum and research this shit like I once did.

[wrab]

The CHA began implementing its Plan For Transformation in 2000.

From the CHA website:

The Plan for Transformation began in 2000 under the leadership of Mayor Richard M. Daley with approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It is the largest, most ambitious redevelopment effort of public housing in the United States, with the goal of rehabilitating or redeveloping the entire stock of public housing in Chicago.

By the end of the Plan, 25,000 units of housing will be renovated or built new. The Plan for Transformation functions under a Moving To Work Agreement with HUD.

The Plan for Transformation goes far beyond the physical structure of public housing. It aims to build and strengthen communities by integrating public housing and its leaseholders into the larger social, economic and physical fabric of Chicago.

CHA, through various City of Chicago departments and non-profit partners, offers leaseholders a comprehensive array of supportive services that lead to self-sufficiency, such as job training, job placement, substance abuse treatment, education, summer programs, day care, and more. Mixed-income communities break down the social barriers that formerly segregated public housing residents from the larger city of Chicago. Where there were once isolated superblocks, the street grid is being recreated to seamlessly integrate the new developments into the surrounding neighborhoods.

In addition to transforming the culture and structure of public housing, the Plan also improves the administration of CHA. Since the Plan’s inception, CHA has streamlined its staff from more than 2,600 to fewer than 500 today. CHA now focuses on its primary responsibility as an asset manager and contracts with private professional property management firms to manage properties.

Link

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

Yes many of the CG residents were relocated in the 90s.

It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the people from RT and CG and other high rise housing projects were relocated within the city of Chicago prior to their destruction. It wasn't like Chicago waited until all the people happened to be out of the building, put a lock on the door, then knocked it down, and told the people to fuck off and move to Atlanta. They relocated the people within Chicago before demolishing the high-rises.

The population decline doesn't come from the destruction of RT or CG it comes from the disappearance of blue collar jobs in the city. The neighborhoods that used to be home to the old Steel Works factory have gone done by 70% since the closing in the 90s. Those people will continue to slowly dribble and they will not be replaced by new immigrants who have been choosing the burbs for the last ten years.

Know your Chicago History. I recommend you go to the Chicago History Museum and research this shit like I once did.

Given the information that wrab and bnk just posted, your claims come across as blithely ignorant. And you offer no evidence, only these ridiculous claims: "St. Louis will bottom out at 200,000 people! All of Chicago's CHA residents were successfully relocated within city limits!"

[Standpoor]

I really do not want to get wrapped up in this debate, especially since I have no hard evidence to back up my claims, but I will throw in what I have heard.

Most of the people I have talked to from poorer, black neighborhoods have lamented that their neighborhoods have gone down hill because of the project residents moving in and destabilizing their neighborhoods. Whether it is a rise in crime or at least the perception of crime, people who could afford to live in the city saw their safety and property values begin to fall and moved out to the suburbs or out of the State. They attributed this decrease in property values and increase in crime to section eight former project residents moving in. Whether or not this is actually true or not, I have no idea. I rarely talk to people who live on the South and West sides but I have heard this from at least five or six people. I think it is simplistic to say that there was some metaphorical highway leading from Henry Horner or Robert Taylor directly to Atlanta or Dolton. Surely a significant portion of former CHA tenants found housing outside of the city but a significant portion of the 200,000 were not CHA tenants.

Furthermore, my neighborhood lost population as well and it is one of the whitest in the city. It has been gentrified since around 2000 but I guess households or household size has decreased since 2000 because my census tract lost almost 4 percent. I found this to be crazy since I have a hard time walking down the street without bumping into a stroller.

To blame one segment or one type of neighborhood for the decrease in population is not correct many factors led to such a large decrease. Luckily, the same things that led to downtown population spiking will also work in the other neighborhoods as well. Decrease crime, decrease transit time, improve landscapes, improve schools, improve housing stock and encourage development.

Finally, according to Encyclopedia of Chicago, over half of the buildings were demolished at Robert Taylor prior to 2000. That is the only one I looked up though.

Encyclopedia of Chicago

Within forty years this neighborhood was being dismantled. Despite the structurally sound exteriors of the buildings and an academic study that found two out of three Taylor residents opposed to the demolition, the CHA had demolished half of the buildings by the year 2000.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Standpoor

Most of the people I have talked to from poorer, black neighborhoods have lamented that their neighborhoods have gone down hill because of the project residents moving in and destabilizing their neighborhoods. Whether it is a rise in crime or at least the perception of crime, people who could afford to live in the city saw their safety and property values begin to fall and moved out to the suburbs or out of the State.

Here's the thing: the 2000s saw a significant reduction in Chicago's homicide rate, as I wrote in a much earlier post. The reduction occurred mostly in the first half of the decade as much of the CHA housing was being dismantled. The CPD claims the reduction was a result of "new techniques" adopted from New York and Los Angeles in 2004, but the trend clearly began in 2003 when the number of homicides decreased from 647 the year before to 598. (Moreover, I'm skeptical of the general competence of the CPD and their ability to bring about such a drastic change on their own without the "aid" of broader demographic trends.) The anecdotes you cite aren't born out by the numbers.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

Given the information that wrab and bnk just posted, your claims come across as blithely ignorant. And you offer no evidence, only these ridiculous claims: "St. Louis will bottom out at 200,000 people! All of Chicago's CHA residents were successfully relocated within city limits!"

STL's population was once almost 900k. It is now around 300K. Why is it ridiculous to claim it could go down to 200k? A net of 600,000 people have left, why is it impossible to conjecture 100,000 more?

And I don't know if I ever said all of Chicago's residents were relocated within the city. I may of out of ephaticisism but I have said many more times that the majority of them were, and that is endeniable. Chicago just didn't know the fuckers down and tell all the familes to fuck off and move to suburban sprawl belt cities like so many chicago forumers are claiming.

[min-chi-cbus]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

Yes many of the CG residents were relocated in the 90s.

It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the people from RT and CG and other high rise housing projects were relocated within the city of Chicago prior to their destruction. It wasn't like Chicago waited until all the people happened to be out of the building, put a lock on the door, then knocked it down, and told the people to fuck off and move to Atlanta. They relocated the people within Chicago before demolishing the high-rises.

The population decline doesn't come from the destruction of RT or CG it comes from the disappearance of blue collar jobs in the city. The neighborhoods that used to be home to the old Steel Works factory have gone done by 70% since the closing in the 90s. Those people will continue to slowly dribble and they will not be replaced by new immigrants who have been choosing the burbs for the last ten years.

Know your Chicago History. I recommend you go to the Chicago History Museum and research this shit like I once did.

Considering that I was THERE before they tore everything down (trying to rehabilitate the area with my church), I feel like I have a decent resource to prove otherwise. The pastor at the local church spoke to us and told us that they "plan to tear down all of these buildings but we are fighting it because they have no plans to put our residents anywhere else". In other words, they tore down the buildings and left many of the residents to find new housing for themselves. The same thing happened in Minneapolis' North Side when the Sumner-Glenwood projects were torn down -- many of the residents had nowhere else to move and the city could only do so much for them.

[the urban politician]

I think Chicago should split into 2 cities:

The central area and north/south lakefronts should become "Chicago", and the rest of what is currently the city of Chicago should be called "Outer Chicago".

Lets end this population issue for once and for all. Turn Chicago from a city of 2.7 million to a city of hundreds of thousands of professionals living within a densely packed lakefront urban conglomeration of awesomeness, and stop caring about whether the city is going to lose its 3rd place ranking to Houston. There are so many more important factors out there than raw population numbers.

[bobdreamz]

I'm just curious as to why this page is all about Chicago & the Census numbers when you have an 18 page thread on this very subject already.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

The anecdotes you cite aren't born out by the numbers.

Public housing demolition, by law, requires public housing replacement. So demolition by itself will not result in significant population decline.

And it's crazy to try and link targeted public housing demolition with citywide crime rates.

To claim that a decrease in crime is "proof" of public housing folks all relocating to Atlanta is completely absurd.

Atlanta had a decrease in crime and public housing demolition too. Where did all those folks go? Maybe they all moved to Chicago?

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Public housing demolition, by law, requires public housing replacement. So demolition by itself will not result in significant population decline.

Right, because the law has really been on these people's side all along. Poor blacks in Chicago have been the most neglected group in the city for decades. It's naive to think that "the law" suddenly started to work for them.

Originally Posted by Crawford

And it's crazy to try and link targeted public housing demolition with citywide crime rates.

To claim that a decrease in crime is "proof" of public housing folks all relocating to Atlanta is completely absurd.

Atlanta had a decrease in crime and public housing demolition too. Where did all those folks go? Maybe they all moved to Chicago?

Why is it absurd to assume that the decline of a crime-prone population would translate into reduced crime? And who said anything about Atlanta? Man, you have a real problem with putting words in people's mouths. I don't know if you do it for the sake of argument, of if you genuinely perceive something that isn't there.

IIRC, people on here mentioned that there had been a spike in crime in some of Chicago's suburbs-- where many of the people who left the city may have moved-- during the past decade. But that part of your response is totally immaterial here. The projects were torn down under the assumption that concentrated poverty produces a disproportional amount of crime. Dispersing that population would therefore yield reduced crime rates, even if, as you (?) and Chase Unperson suggest, that population remained in the city through government relocation.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by min-chi-cbus

Considering that I was THERE before they tore everything down (trying to rehabilitate the area with my church), I feel like I have a decent resource to prove otherwise. The pastor at the local church spoke to us and told us that they "plan to tear down all of these buildings but we are fighting it because they have no plans to put our residents anywhere else". In other words, they tore down the buildings and left many of the residents to find new housing for themselves. The same thing happened in Minneapolis' North Side when the Sumner-Glenwood projects were torn down -- many of the residents had nowhere else to move and the city could only do so much for them.

Thank you. I repeat: It's naive to assume that the government follows what's on the books, or hasn't devised clever ways of getting around it. Look at the police force of most major cities! They routinely circumvent the law, especially when it comes to poor blacks. Why on earth anyone would assume that this kind of behavior is limited to the police force and is not a feature of other branches of local government is totally beyond me.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by bobdreamz

I'm just curious as to why this page is all about Chicago & the Census numbers when you have an 18 page thread on this very subject already.

You're right. Maybe a moderator should move the discussion? To answer your question: see post 744.

[LMich]

Amid all of the 2010 Census count releases, the bureau released the first new estimates of the decade for July 1, 2010:

http://www.census.gov/popest/eval-estimates/eval-est2010.html

I'm a bit confused how the count found 9.88 million for Michigan, but the estimate for a few months after the count estimates a population back up to 9.93 million, which would only be -0.07% off the 2000 Census count. Does anyone know how they go about estimates in a Census year? Because, I was always under the impression that the 2010 estimates were largely based on the 2010 counts, and if that's the case, they'd have to be closer than what I'm seeing.

Anyway...

Census Estimates for States: July 1, 2010

.Alabama 4,729,656
.Alaska 708,862
.Arizona 6,676,627
.Arkansas 2,910,236
.California 37,266,600
.Colorado 5,095,309
.Connecticut 3,526,937
.Delaware 891,464
.District of Columbia 610,589
.Florida 18,678,049
.Georgia 9,908,357
.Hawaii 1,300,086
.Idaho 1,559,796
.Illinois 12,944,410
.Indiana 6,445,295
.Iowa 3,023,081
.Kansas 2,841,121
.Kentucky 4,339,435
.Louisiana 4,529,426
.Maine 1,312,939
.Maryland 5,737,274
.Massachusetts 6,631,280
.Michigan 9,931,235
.Minnesota 5,290,447
.Mississippi 2,960,467
.Missouri 6,011,741
.Montana 980,152
.Nebraska 1,811,072
.Nevada 2,654,751
.New Hampshire 1,323,531
.New Jersey 8,732,811
.New Mexico 2,033,875
.New York 19,577,730
.North Carolina 9,458,888
.North Dakota 653,778
.Ohio 11,532,111
.Oklahoma 3,724,447
.Oregon 3,855,536
.Pennsylvania 12,632,780
.Rhode Island 1,056,870
.South Carolina 4,596,958
.South Dakota 820,077
.Tennessee 6,338,112
.Texas 25,213,445
.Utah 2,830,753
.Vermont 622,433
.Virginia 7,952,119
.Washington 6,746,199
.West Virginia 1,825,513
.Wisconsin 5,668,519
.Wyoming 547,637