The US Census Bureau thread

[edale]

Originally Posted by Crawford

You cannot have have big employment gains confirmed by BLS concurrent with big population loss estimates confirmed by Census (I mean you can, but it would be some bizarre situation where all the retirees and children disappeared or something).

Sure you can. Old people dying off in greater numbers than young people replacing them could result in decreasing population while employment numbers rise. Remote work has allowed people to live far away from where they work, which could also explain the discrepancy. There are plenty of explanations for such a scenario.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by edale

Sure you can. Old people dying off in greater numbers than young people replacing them could result in decreasing population while employment numbers rise.

Seniors are 17% of the U.S. population. Under your scenario, for a place to have a large employment increase concurrent with massive population decrease, you'd have to have a mass evacuation of seniors, which otherwise isn't reflected in any data.

Originally Posted by edale

Remote work has allowed people to live far away from where they work, which could also explain the discrepancy.

No, unless people are lying. A remote worker wouldn't be counted as an employed resident of a city where they don't live. We aren't talking about people employed in a city, but city residents employed.

[3rd&Brown]

Let's make an argument on the flip side.

The numbers show Denton County TX added over 100k people in a single year. It's a smidge over 1MM people as is.

This would have you believe come the next census Denton County will have 2MM people. Is there anyone here who believes that Denton County TX will double population in TEN years? Even the zoomiest of zoomy boom burbs don't double every ten years. Maybe if a county is going from 100K to 200K people. But from 1MM to 2MM? It's complete and utter BS.

[aufbau]

These census threads always turn conspiratorial or to grasping-at-straws kind of thinking when older cities' numbers are released. The most reasonable explanation is these places are still losing residents, as there aren't that attractive places to live for most people.

"Record traffic levels" (further outward sprawl, inadequate and unsafe public transit) "record construction" (for 4000/mo apartments for one or two people live in while entire families move out), "undocumented immigrants/young people aren't counted (lots of nooks and crannies for them to hide in those railroad apartments!)."

We fetishize raw numbers here too much on SSP, without asking how to make cities more sustainable and attractive. Since we are all speaking anecdotally here, I wfh with my S/O who also does since Covid. Friends and inertia keep us here. However, not a week goes by where we feel like suckers being middle income New Yorkers. I'm sure a lot of those 78000 who left would agree.

/end rant from a salty Brooklynite

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by aufbau

The most reasonable explanation is these places are still losing residents, as there aren't that attractive places to live for most people.

I think the most reasonable explanation is that these numbers are off, just as they have proven to be for decades and as the Census Bureau has admitted.

[JManc]

Houston is not that affordable anymore. It has a lot of run down areas driving down average costs but the areas people want to live are getting expensive plus the property taxes and insurance.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by JManc

Houston is not that affordable anymore. It has a lot of run down areas driving down average costs but the areas people want to live are getting expensive plus the property taxes and insurance.

This just means many of those run down areas are ripe for gentrification.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

This just means many of those run down areas are ripe for gentrification.

But where will "the gentrified" go? Oklahoma? Louisiana? It's like whack-a-mole.

I haven't been to Houston in a long time, but it was my favorite Texan city back in the day. I had so much fun there. If I had to live in Texas, I'd live in Houston. I guess that's why it's so expensive in the desirable areas?

[C.]

Houston is a fantastic city. It gets a lot of hate for things that most cities are guilty of.

Taking emotions out of it, I dare someone to compare affordability of Houston to other major U.S. cities. Housing prices are out of control, but Houston salaries tend to be on the higher side and housing tends to be more affordable.

I always have a laugh when Houston Texans point out that while there is no state income tax, their property taxes are higher when in New Jersey there is a state income tax and their property taxes are highest in the nation. As the kids say today, the math ain’t mathing if making the claim that Houston isn’t that affordable.

[C.]

Question to Texas people:

Will Austin and San Antonio ever merge into one mega city or MSA.

I swear the commuting patterns are already there.

[The ATX]

I stuck the 2024 census release Metro estimates into a spreadsheet to come up with the YOY fastest growing large Metros (1M+). Austin was number one in every release from 2011 to 2023. But Austin was dethroned by Jacksonville in the 2024 release.

[SteveD]

Orlando - Charlotte - San Antonio....all within a few years of the 3 million milestone. Remarkable how closely bunched those 3 are.

That Dallas and Houston are so massive AND rank near the top in growth rate is just, well, stunning.

[Yuri]

Jacksonville is so under radar and it didn't use to be right on the top, specially during the growth bonanza pre-2008.

Phoenix and Las Vegas, on the other hand, used to have insane rates, but since then they have much more normal rates.

Cincinnati is now joining the fast growing Midwest areas.

The most depressing thing about that list it's very few have or are developing an urban lifestyle.

[IcedCowboyCoffee]

You would imagine with the wild amount of towers going up in downtown Austin that the city's population would be growing more than it seems to be.

For 2022, Travis county, of which the majority of Austin's city limits sits in, grew by 18,682 and the city of Austin proper only grew by 5,104 that year.
We don't have the city estimates for 2023 yet, but this year the entirety of Travis county is up by less than half as much as the previous year, by only 7,411 people. That's +0.56%. If the proportion from last year holds steady that would mean Austin proper barely grew at all.

This is the same trend for the rest of the Texas metros for sure where all the big growth is in the suburbs, but Austin is the one tossing up skyscrapers downtown left and right.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by IcedCowboyCoffee

This is the same trend for the rest of the Texas metros for sure where all the big growth is in the suburbs, but Austin is the one tossing up skyscrapers downtown left and right.

No downtown Austin projects over 300' have broken ground since 2022. All the construction ongoing from 2022 starts might suggest that towers are still breaking ground. Although two 30-stories towers did break ground in 2023 in downtown adjacent West Campus.

[ColDayMan]

I will say I'm happy to see Columbus, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati doing "well" as this whole eastern Ohio Valley thing can get, well, depressing. And Columbus and Indy mirroring percentage points/net growth is nuts. And Cincinnati, the first major Midwest city, not doing bad is good news to hear. And even crazier...Athens (Ohio) is a top 5 growing Micropolitan Area in the entire country, smack in the middle of Appalachia with no university growth at all (Ohio University lost students since the pandemic). Eat it, Morgantown!

[Wigs]

I like hearing about those cities doing well too. Particularly Cincinnati city proper coming back at the same time as Buffalo after decades of decline.

One of the best ideas Indianapolis had was the Canal Walk. The paddleboat swans is a nice, quirky touch.

I had no idea it even existed until an online friend showed me photos
• Video Link

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Raleigh’s MSA should not be severed from Durham/Chapel-Hill. Ridiculous

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by DCMetroRaleigh

Raleigh’s MSA should not be severed from Durham/Chapel-Hill. Ridiculous

Yes, I thought it was one metro and then they separated it to two in 2003 (per Bing), which was weird to me. Bing says that they may combine them again. I would not be surprised for the 2030 census.

[Lobotomizer]

I was just looking at the Wikipedia page for US MSA rankings, and was shocked to see New Orleans has dropped to the 58th largest with a population of only 962,165.

I knew it wasn't a huge place, but still thought it was in the 1.3 or 1.4 million range. It's shocking to me to see it ranked lower than places such as Greenville, SC, Omaha, NE, and Tulsa, OK