The US Census Bureau thread

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Is this actually a thing? I can’t imagine the entire state agreeing to something like that.

NY, NJ and CT basically no longer have new construction SFH sprawl. At least not within the NYC CSA. This is why you see all those sprawly new developments right over the PA line. New development more or less stopped in the 1990's.

It's not that the states formally agreed to this, it's that the laws incentivize NIMBYism, which is a good thing in the sprawly towns. Communities don't want any new housing that adds children, bc the locals have to increase their tax burden for each new kid. So nothing is built in sprawl except for apartments, empty nester housing and small condos.

Also, communities don't want to pay for new sewer & infrastructure hookups, which are extremely expensive given newer state environmental rules. Finally, all three states have some version of a state law that requires affordable housing construction if SFH housing is permitted.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Is this actually a thing? I can’t imagine the entire state agreeing to something like that.

Also, if so- NJ is already arguably in the top 3 unaffordable states. If this is real, Real Estate costs will skyrocket even more. The northern half of the state is highly unaffordable and property tax burdens are downright scary.

Pretty much everything in New Jersey that isn't developed now is protected land.

[bossabreezes]

^^Yes, understood to the previous two posts. Very true, almost no new sprawl anywhere in the state. I was inquiring more about legislation that actually forced this, but it appears it’s organically occurring rather than some kind of statewide law based collective.

Even though I’m anti-sprawl, I worry this could lead to California level housing crises in NJ specifically, due to land constraints and eventual scarcity that the other two Crawford mentioned don’t really have. At some point there will be no more brownfield redevelopment that can keep up with demand.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

^^Yes, understood to the previous two posts. Very true, almost no new sprawl anywhere in the state. I was inquiring more about legislation that actually forced this, but it appears it’s organically occurring rather than some kind of statewide law based collective.

Even though I’m anti-sprawl, I worry this could lead to California level housing crises in NJ specifically, due to land constraints and eventual scarcity that the other two Crawford mentioned don’t really have. At some point there will be no more brownfield redevelopment that can keep up with demand.

Unlike CA, NJ doesn't have good weather or tech jobs that pay unlimited money for houses to go up that high. The lack of supply is being somewhat cancelled out by high COL and anti-business environment within the state, as a result NJ has outflow of population to keep housing prices reasonable. There are also a few jurisdictions in NJ that actually do build housing, such as Jersey City.

[bossabreezes]

^^Even with outflow, the states population is still growing and therefore more housing is still needed. Also, it has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the country, and is one of the most strategically located places in the country. It has also absorbed thousands leaving NYC, and will continue to do that for eternity. Jersey City itself is becoming a bio-tech and science hub.

The weather is awful, no question there. Also, no argument in regards to the red tape, difficulty of everything ect including doing business, similar to California.

[iheartthed]

Since the 1970s, every municipality in New Jersey is required to allocate a percentage of housing for "low" and "moderate" income. I think most NJ suburbs get around this by holding their housing inventory static, hence why the growth is pushed back into the urban areas. I think what makes it worse in California is that more of that states residential supply is zoned for low-density purposes.

[Steely Dan]

Detroit is largest city to challenge 2020 census numbers
Majority-Black Detroit has become the largest city to challenge its figures from the 2020 census following a national head count in which the U.S. Census Bureau acknowledges African Americans were undercounted

By MIKE SCHNEIDER and COREY WILLIAMS Associated Press
April 4, 2022, 7:48 PM ET


DETROIT -- Majority-Black Detroit has become the largest U.S. city to challenge its figures from the 2020 census following a national head count in which the U.S. Census Bureau acknowledges that a higher percentage of African Americans were undercounted than last decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Leaders of Michigan's largest city, which is more than three-quarters Black, had questioned the results of the 2020 census since last December when they released a report suggesting that more than 8% of the occupied homes in 10 Detroit neighborhoods may have been undercounted.

Detroit filed its challenge late last week, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In a letter to the Census Bureau, Mayor Michael Duggan said insufficient resources and not enough census takers were devoted to the count in Detroit, resulting in an undercount of unoccupied homes that could amount to tens of thousand of residents being overlooked.

Full article: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Lifestyle/wir...y-challenge-2020-census-numbers-83871422

[subterranean]

In other news, the 1950 census was released a few days ago. These are always fun to explore if you’re into genealogy.

1950 Census Records

1950 Census Celebration Videos Join a virtual celebration of the 1950 Census records release by watching remarks from the Archivist of the United States, the Director of the Census Bureau, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Interior, and other distinguished individuals.

Source: https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950

[Steely Dan]

^ it's been fun tracking down a lot of my relatives here in Chicago through the search tool.

I still haven't found my maternal grandfather's grandmother who was born in 1860 (her family's home was destroyed in the great Chicago Fire in 1871) and who died in her 90s in the early 50s.

She wasn't living in my great grandfather's 2-flat because my grandparents, my mom and her siblings were in the upstairs unit in 1950 according to the census records. Perhaps she was living with one of her other children by then.

[Steely Dan]

back to detroit's census challenge, i was curious how the CB's own estimate for the undercount of minorities nationally might impact detroit if those same percentages held there (-3.30 for blacks and -4.99 for latinos).

if you apply those percentages to the actual 2020 counts of those groups in detroit, then that would add up to nearly 20,000 people that went uncounted in the motor city.

a giant "IF", mind you, but still interesting to ponder, considering that detroit is one of the most heavily minority cities in the nation.

[iheartthed]

I think I question whether this is a worthwhile use of resources for the city of Detroit. A 20k adjustment is immaterial to the overall population of the city, and I'm not sure that it changes much in the allocation of federal funding... which is basically the only reason that spending money on a challenge would make any sense.

[Steely Dan]

^ I found one source that said each person counted in the census represents roughly $1,500 in federal founding allocation, so 20,000 people would equal $30M.

That's not nothing.

What' more, the City of Detroit believes the undercount was even greater, based off of a UofM study that looked in depth at a handful of city neighborhoods and found an 8% undercount.

That 8% extrapolated out city-wide (another huge "IF") would represent an undercount of about 51,000 people, or nearly $77M in federal funding.

[subterranean]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think I question whether this is a worthwhile use of resources for the city of Detroit. A 20k adjustment is immaterial to the overall population of the city, and I'm not sure that it changes much in the allocation of federal funding... which is basically the only reason that spending money on a challenge would make any sense.

A 2018 analysis by Pew found that an undercount of one percent of a state’s population in the census could decrease its federal Medicaid reimbursement rate by as much as one dollar for every $100 spent by the state in most states.

In 2019, the total Medicaid expenditures in Michigan was $19,292,564,027, about $13 billion of which was Federal. Assuming Detroit's share is about 7% of the state total (based on %p) would mean about $910 million in total Federal Medicaid reimbursements for the city. If the Pew analysis is correct and the Detroit apportionment assumption is ballpark correct, a 5% undercount would result in a reduction of about $45 million in lost Medicaid funding alone. Given the U-M study's findings that Detroit is a big outlier among its peers in terms of discrepancies between 2019 estimates for pop and housing units vs 2020 Census, I'd say challenging is a no-brainer.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ I found one source that said each person counted in the census represents roughly $1,500 in federal founding allocation, so 20,000 people would equal $30M.

That's not nothing.

What' more, the City of Detroit believes the undercount was even greater, based off of a UofM study that looked in depth at a handful of city neighborhoods and found an 8% undercount.

That 8% extrapolated out city-wide (another huge "IF") would represent an undercount of about 51,000 people, or nearly $77M in federal funding.

Yeah, if the change would alter funding by that much then it's worth challenging. But you'd think that every city would challenge over numbers like that. $77M would be a worthwhile number even for NYC, even though 20k is a rounding error on the population.

[Steely Dan]

Looking into it further, about 80% of that $1,500 dollars/person goes to state-level agencies (and the lion's share of that goes through medicaid reimbursements), so the local government windfall would be WAY less, more like $7M - $15M in this case.

I have no idea how much it costs to challenge a census count, nor do I know how often they are successful. Depending on those realities, this might be a risky gamble without a huge payoff.

[edale]

Federal funding is often cited as a reason for census challenges, but I think it's mostly done out of pride and the egos of politicians. Cincinnati challenged several census estimates in the 2000s because the Mayor thought the population loss stats didn't match the comeback story he was trying to spin. The USCB revised the estimates based on the challenges, and then the 2010 census basically showed the declines the original numbers were showing. It was pointless, but done out of pride and political ambition.

As it turns out, Cincinnati's population has rebounded, and the city grew in the 2020 census-- the first time since the 60s. Those mid 2000s years probably the first where decline had either slowed or stopped, but the reversal of the trajectory of the city wasn't reflected in population growth until several years later.

Point is, I don't think census challenges are very worthwhile. Population numbers don't tell the whole story when it comes to the health of a city, or the direction it's headed.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

Population numbers don't tell the whole story when it comes to the health of a city, or the direction it's headed.

and that goes doubly for large land area cities like detroit with 139 sq. miles.

core detroit is indeed growing again, but it's a small percentage of the city overall, and the growth there isn't robust enough yet to fully offset the still substantial amount of population loss occurring in many other areas of the city.

[Crawford]

I think Detroit would probably be stable if Mexican immigration returned to pre-2010 levels. SW Detroit, which is Mexican, was expanding pretty robustly until that point, and adjacent parts of Detroit are basically empty. New migrants would fill that void pretty quickly. The Grand River Ave. corridor, from the core to the suburbs, is, with few exceptions, a wasteland, and not too far from where Mexican immigrants dominate.

Not to be a broken record, but federal immigration policy is absolutely critical to understanding demographic trends in U.S. cities. It's an enormous factor in the mid 20th century decline, the failure to protect European Jews before/during WW2, and the stagnant working class populations in recent years. Post 1920 or so, immigration from Italy and Eastern Europe to U.S. plummeted by 90%+, eventually resulting in catastrophic urban challenges.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think Detroit would probably be stable if Mexican immigration returned to pre-2010 levels. SW Detroit, which is Mexican, was expanding pretty robustly until that point, and adjacent parts of Detroit are basically empty.

since 1970, the city of detroit only experienced one decade where the latino population increased "robustly": the '90s.


City of Detroit latino population by decade (growth over previous decade):

1970: 27,038
1980: 28,970 (+1,932)
1990: 28,473 (-497)
2000: 47,167 (+18,694)
2010: 48,679 (+1,512)
2020: 51,269 (+2,590)

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit#Table



other than the '90s, those are some remarkably paltry raw latino growth figures for a big city like detroit.

in general, detroit's relative lack of latino immigration over the past half century has been one of the city's biggest demographic roadblocks.

imagine where the city of chicago would be right now, demographically, if it didn't receive those hundreds of thousands of latino immigrants over that same time frame?

in fact, outside of chicago, and to a lesser extent milwaukee, the lack of latino immgration is one of the main demographic stories across the major rust-belt cities.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

since 1970, the city of detroit only experienced one decade where the latino population increased "robustly": the '90s.


City of Detroit latino population by decade (growth over previous decade):

1970: 27,038
1980: 28,970 (+1,932)
1990: 28,473 (-497)
2000: 47,167 (+18,694)
2010: 48,679 (+1,512)
2020: 51,269 (+2,590)

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit#Table



other than the '90s, those are some remarkably paltry raw latino growth figures for a big city like detroit.

in general, detroit's relative lack of latino immigration over the past half century has been one of the city's biggest demographic roadblocks.

imagine where the city of chicago would be right now, demographically, if it didn't receive those hundreds of thousands of latino immigrants over that same time frame?

in fact, outside of chicago, and to a lesser extent milwaukee, the lack of latino immgration is one of the main demographic stories across the major rust-belt cities.

The 1990s remains Detroit's slowest declining decade since 1950 in large part because of that immigrant boost. There was also a lot of immigration from the Middle East that decade too, which doesn't show up as neatly in the top-line ethnic/racial demographics data. But you can clearly see the effect if you look at the municipalities with Middle Eastern enclaves like Hamtramck and Dearborn.