The US Census Bureau thread

[Thundertubs]

Originally Posted by pip

the midwest is dying. Every city with some exceptions is losing population faster or near as fast as the height of the decline in the 70's it seems.

If by "The Midwest" you're excluding Indianapolis, Columbus, Madison, Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha, Lincoln...

The Great Lakes/Rust Belt area is seeing some bad numbers, but a lot of the Midwest is doing fine. It's a big region.

[LtBk]

I was expecting Philly's population to be higher, but at least the city is not declining anymore.

[DBR96A]

Well at least we can put to rest all the talk about Toledo being larger than Pittsburgh.

I'm shocked that Cleveland is now below 400,000 and Cincinnati is now below 300,000.

[JivecitySTL]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

How low can STL, Cleveland, and Detroit go? Amazing after a solid decade of urban cities becoming fashionable and renovated to drop almost 20%. Where's the bottom?

Don't paint with such a broad brush. All of these cities are still showing vast improvement in a lot of areas. They continue to struggle in others. Remember that they were built extremely dense. When buildings are renovated, they are almost always done so to accommodate fewer units than they had before. Compound that with the fact that household size has decreased across the board and you have a recipe for overall population loss. Detroit and Cleveland have been hit very hard in the economic downturn of the past several years. St. Louis to a lesser extent. But I can tell you that St. Louis is a MUCH better city to live in today than it was 10 years ago, and it's more vibrant, too. Population loss does not automatically equal higher vacancies. I live in a condo development comprised of renovated turn-of-the-century apartment buildings that used to have 80 units. The buildings were rehabbed into condos in 2007 and now only house 48 units. All are fully occupied. The same trend has played out in neighborhoods across the city for the past 15 years or so. You can't take raw numbers at face value without knowing the whole story.

[Thundertubs]

Ohio beyond the top-5:

Dayton: 141,547
Canton: 73,007
Youngstown: 66,982 (-18.3% from 2000, -60% from 1930 peak of 170,002)
Lorain: 64,097
Hamilton: 62,477
Springfield: 60,608
Elyria: 54,533
Middletown: 48,694
Mansfield: 47,821
Newark: 47,573
Warren: 41,577

[Matthew]

It's good to see growth for our Moravian friends to the north: Bethlehem. Bethlehem is the eighth largest city in Pennsylvania. The city grew by 3,653 to reach 74,982. I would love to see Bethlehem reach the 100,000 club and appear on the list. It's one of my favorite cities.

"In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love."

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Thundertubs

Connecticut

Bridgeport: 144,229
New Haven: 129,779
Hartford: 124,775
Stamford: 122,643
Waterbury: 110,366
Norwalk: 85,603
Danbury: 80,893
New Britain: 73,206

Every one of these cities had a modest population gain. Hartford's was slight, and Danbury's was the greatest.

Overall, Connecticut lost whites, and gained everyone else, particularly Asians and Hispanics.

Hartford Courant article

Good news for Connecticut cities, many of which were estimated to have lost population from 2000. In New Haven, there was an aggressive push by Yale to have students counted as residents. The university knows its fate is somewhat tied to the perception of the city, and that the city gets more funding if the population grows. (The administration said as much in the emails they sent to the student body reminding everyone of the importance of filling out the census forms.) New Haven grew by 5%-- a little under 6,000 people-- so I can't help but think that played a role. (Yale has about 5,200 undergrads and 11,500 students in total.)

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

Don't paint with such a broad brush. All of these cities are still showing vast improvement in a lot of areas. They continue to struggle in others. Remember that they were built extremely dense. When buildings are renovated, they are almost always done so to accommodate fewer units than they had before. Compound that with the fact that household size has decreased across the board and you have a recipe for overall population loss. Detroit and Cleveland have been hit very hard in the economic downturn of the past several years. St. Louis to a lesser extent. But I can tell you that St. Louis is a MUCH better city to live in today than it was 10 years ago, and it's more vibrant, too. Population loss does not automatically equal higher vacancies. I live in a condo development comprised of renovated turn-of-the-century apartment buildings that used to have 80 units. The buildings were rehabbed into condos in 2007 and now only house 48 units. All are fully occupied. The same trend has played out in neighborhoods across the city for the past 15 years or so. You can't take raw numbers at face value without knowing the whole story.

I don't know what I am painting. I just think it is shocking to see the populations of Chicago, STL and Cleveland all dropping so significantly after the last decade. I mean Cleveland was once a monster in the US and now it would barely be in the top ten in California. We blamed the plunges in the 60s and 70s on white flight and then the 80s on urban decay. 1 out of 6 people left Cleveland in the last decade. Unbelievable. What do we blame it on now? And what are NYC and SF doing right? They went through modest dips in the last 60 years but are now back at all time highs. And LA has been one of the 5 largest cities for the last 80 years and it is at an all time high.

How low can they go?

[JivecitySTL]

New York can attribute its population increase to a continued influx of immigrants. It, too, lost white and black population. Immigrants, immigrants, immigrants. Without them, NYC would have also experienced a decline.

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

New York can attribute its population increase to a continued influx of immigrants. It, too, lost white and black population. Immigrants, immigrants, immigrants. Without them, NYC would have also experienced a decline.

But hasn't NYC always been driven by immigrants: Dutch, English, Italians, Irish, Germans, Jews in the past and now non-euros? So you are saying that Cleveland and STL quit being an destination for immigrants at some point, no?

[JivecitySTL]

^Yes they did. At one time in their history, Cleveland and Saint Louis were among the top 5 immigrant cities, but they have since become secondary immigration destinations-- although it's picking up. We need to strengthen our economies so new arrivals can see opportunity in these old great cities!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by babybackribs2314

Disagree, I think NYC will do similar to SF-DC (modest growth). I think Brooklyn's population may come in somewhat lower than expected while Manhattan's comes in higher (rapid gentrification in Brooklyn & tons of new construction/infill in Manhattan). The Bronx may show a somewhat large decline.

While I have no idea how NYC will fare, why would you predict the Bronx would register a population decline?

Among the Five Boroughs, it's probably the least likely candidate for population decline.

It has the least gentrification and its immigration rate has increased the most, so family sizes are probably growing. It has also built new housing at a faster rate than the other Boroughs.

And the Census estimates show faster recent growth in the Bronx than in the other Boroughs.

I don't know how NYC will fare, but I'm confident the Bronx will perform as well or better than the other Boroughs.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Antares41

What is fueling the growth? Affordable housing and proximity to NYC and Philadelphia?

Yep.

NE Pennsylvania is now exurban sprawl for NYC and Philly. Forget the factory town stereotypes. Think tract homes and strip malls.

There's basically an vast legion of commuter buses headed to Manhattan every weekday.

The real estate ads in the NY Post and NY Daily News are 90% NE PA. There's almost nothing for the traditional tri-state.

And NE PA is diversifying like crazy. Many folks moving out there are non-white, which is a new thing for the Poconos.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by LtBk

I was expecting Philly's population to be higher, but at least the city is not declining anymore.

I think Philly is the best story yet in this Census.

I thought it would show population decline.

Relative to the other big NE corridor cities, Philly has relative little immigration, vast areas of urban decay, and fairly limited gentrification. Yet it grew, and for that, it deserves high praise.

[volguus zildrohar]

Why was Ohio's response rate so low? I'm not too surprised at Cleveland's figures but I am at Cincinnati's. What gives?

Originally Posted by LtBk

I was expecting Philly's population to be higher, but at least the city is not declining anymore.

I would have been shocked by higher figures, honestly.

This city still remains a popular place to leave for some people, like lifers. Philadelphia has one of the highest percentages of elderly residents of any major city - plenty of people in a position to pull up stakes and head for warmer places. And that's just one group.

And remember that when the switch gets thrown in reverse, things don't suddenly start moving the other way as fast as they were. Over 170,000 net people left this city between 1980 and 2000. When the drain stops and the population grows again, it usually would start off at a trickle.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

New York can attribute its population increase to a continued influx of immigrants. It, too, lost white and black population. Immigrants, immigrants, immigrants.

I would agree that immigrants are the primary fuel for NYC's growth, but the NYC white population is growing (at least according to the Census estimates).

Obviously we will have to wait for official Census numbers, but the annual estimates show that only the black populaton is decreasing in NYC.

It may be, however, that immigration fuels some of the white growth in NYC. NYC is somewhat unusual in that many immigrants are from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by northbay

texas

sonoma county's white population shrunk 6% while our hispanic population grew 52%!

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article...ulation-jumps-

We may not be losing Whites in Texas, but the biggest gains are coming from Hispanics. There were at least two or three towns in Austin's metro that had 300+% Hispanic population gains and one even had an insane 1,257% gain in Hispanic population. These were numbers since the 2000 Census.

Source

[Urbanguy]

Has East Los Angeles CDP always been separate from Los Angeles city or is this a new thing? The reason why i'm asking is because Honolulu's CDP was split into two in the 2010 Census which is quite interesting to me. Anyway, East Honolulu is one of the more wealthy & probably the most Republican area of the entire city & metro -- so i'm wondering if it was all political and/or economic?

BTW, in regards to the decreasing numbers of Whites & Blacks has anyone also been following the increase in people claiming to be of Two or More Races? More people are claiming to be of more than one race than ever before. For example, Hawaii's Black alone population decreased by 600 since the 2000 Census but those claiming to be part-Black increased by nearly 5,500. Just saying...

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by pip

the midwest is dying. Every city with some exceptions is losing population faster or near as fast as the height of the decline in the 70's it seems.

I assume Chicago is an exception to the midwest dying even in spite of its own population loss (-6.9%). Chicago's loss was also still less than in the 1970's (-10.7%) and 1980's (-7.4%), I guess it depends on what one considers "near as fast" but Chicago's population loss is still less than 2/3rds what it was in the 1970's. Also cities like Cleveland, Saint Louis, Detroit and others have never seen post-war population gains city wide unlike Chicago which did in the 2000 census (+4%).

[pip]

^that was a one time gain out of 50 years of decline - that's not that impressive. But there is two Chicago's, both bad and good, and I know all cities offer that but the both in Chicago offer huge numbers. The good here offers a critical mass equal in size to most cities and likewise the bad too. It is a different dynamic here than others.