The US Census Bureau thread

[edluva]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

Apologize for ever mentioning Houston and the fact it had a port. From where I got my numbers the only recent info I could find was from here which was the first thing that came up when I typed in google "us port ranking by value". For tonnage I got my numbers off of AAPA website.

Forget I mentioned it. I went to UCLA, and love LA. Last thing I wanted to do was start another Houston vs LA discussion. As far as I know LA isn't even losing that many jobs to Houston so not sure it matters?

this has nothing to do with versus or los angles perse, so no need to apologize for what didn't exist.. i'm correcting your inaccurate data. perhaps you missed that point? and who said anything about la losing jobs to houston. la is losing (certain kinds of) people to houston, and probably losing (certain kinds of) jobs to china.

[M II A II R II K]

Behind Census Figures Showing Boom in Nevada, a Story of Bust


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/us...a.html?_r=2&hp

By any measure, it should have been a cause for celebration in a place that surely needs one. The Census Bureau reported that Nevada grew by 35 percent over the last decade, making it the fastest-growing state in the nation. Instead, it was another reminder of how bad things have become here, and how exhausting a decade this state has endured. This was the boom capital of the country — which explains the census report — until the economy collapsed in 2007. People started moving out, chasing jobs or escaping a house market with the highest foreclosure rate in the country. Unemployment here is now 14.3 percent, the highest in the country.

“People come for the good jobs and the good life, and if that’s no longer here, they are gone,” said David F. Damore, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “People are just moving out.” The state demographer, Jeff Hardcastle, estimated that Nevada had lost more than 90,000 people since July 2008, and expects the decline to continue through next year. He said that before 2007, Nevada had been the top-growing state for most of the past 20 years.

People are leaving in search of more prosperous economic climates. But analysts said the state’s population had been hurt by a declining birthrate, not uncommon during tough economic times, and illegal immigrants leaving, or at least avoiding census takers as public attitudes toward them turned harsh.

Here in Henderson, a place of once seemingly unstoppable sprawl, there were banners Wednesday advertising cut-rate deals on homes built where there was desert 20 years ago. Or worse: places like Vantage Lofts on Horizon Ridge Road, a housing complex abandoned in mid-construction. A pile of exposed glass, plywood and cement, surrounded by chain-link fences, gave testimony to the hopes, and unfounded speculation, of developers.

Indeed, many of the abandoned or underused housing, office and retail developments were built by speculators drawn by what once seemed the prospect of endless growth, the lure of Wild West development and the promise of an economic jackpot. “Prior to 2007, the underlying assumption was, build it and they will come,” Mr. Hardcastle said.

....

Nevada at a Glance

Population: 2,700,551

Change since 2000: An increase of 35.1 percent

Nevada will gain one seat in the House of Representatives, giving the state four seats, its most ever.

Foreign-born residents make up 18.7 percent of the state’s population; 27.5 percent speak a language other than English at home.

Median age: 35.3 years

Families below the poverty line: 8 percent

Median value of owner-occupied homes: $275,300

The word “nevada,” in Spanish, roughly means snow-covered.

Nickname: the Silver State

[M II A II R II K]

Behind the Population Shift


December 28, 2010

By EDWARD L. GLAESER

Read More: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...er=rss&emc=rss

Last week, the Census released population figures that will reshape the House of Representatives, moving political power south and west. The four states that added the most people were California, Florida, Georgia and Texas, and the two states with the highest growth rates were Arizona and Nevada. Why do these states attract so many people? The rise of the Sun Belt has two common explanations: one climatic and the other commercial. The climatic, obvious explanation is that it’s the weather, stupid. The commercial explanation, which has a proselytizing undertone, is that places like Texas and Nevada attract companies and people with their lower business taxes and fewer regulations.

The first view emphasizes the outdoors; the second right-to-work laws. If all that we knew was that Sun Belt populations were increasing, it would be impossible to distinguish among these and other theories, but we have evidence on wages, productivity and the price of housing that can help us make sense of the Census. If economic productivity – created by low regulations or anything else – was causing the growth of Texas, Arizona and Georgia, then these places should have high per capita productivity and wages. Yet per capita state product in Arizona in 2009 was $35,300, 16 percent less than the national average. Per capita state products was $36,700 in Georgia and $42,500 in Texas.

These figures are far below per capita state products in slow-growing places like Connecticut ($58,500), Massachusetts ($50,600) and New York ($50,200). According to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey, median family incomes were $56,200, $60,800 and $56,600 in Georgia, Nevada and Texas, but $83,000, $81,000 and $66,900 in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. Low incomes and productivity in the growing states of the Sun Belt strongly suggest that their expansion is not driven by outsize economic success.

Perhaps, sunshine really is behind Sun Belt growth. A superb climate is surely part of the appeal of Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, but what about fast-growing Houston, which has 99 days a year with the temperature above 90 degrees? The economists’ creed that free lunches are rare does appear to apply to cities as well as stocks. If a place is pleasant, you end up paying for it, especially in the form of higher housing prices. That logic explains why the median sales price for a home in the San Jose area was $630,000 in the third quarter of 2010.

....

[pesto]

This article is very disorganized; I suspect the author had to write something and just pushed some facts and nonsense together.

The bulk of the recent US migration has little to do with LA, Silicon Valley or the Northeast. California and the NE are expensive and this undoubtedly slows their growth, as do high taxes and excessive regulation. Pulling the other way are the weather in California and NY's unique lifestyle.

The big shift is largely from the more central parts of the north (Gt. Lakes) to the south (Fl, Tex, Az, etc.). This is driven partly by weather, although as noted, Houston and other cities are hardly ideal. But the main drivers have been businesses chosing to expand there. This is presumably because of relatively good weather, low prices and taxes, and less regulation than they would face in the industrial north.

[M II A II R II K]

Well it was written by an Economics Professor from Harvard, so he probably has reason to say what he's written.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Well it was written by an Economics Professor from Harvard, so he probably has reason to say what he's written.

Well, I wonder why he contradicted himself. He held California up as an example of policy retarding growth, except California posted one of the highest growths of population in the country.

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Well it was written by an Economics Professor from Harvard, so he probably has reason to say what he's written.

Well I'm sure the guys knows much much more about what he is talking about than me, and is much smarter than me, but I can not seem to follow what he is saying. It seems to me that if the only reason people were moving south was because of the cheep housing (which no doubt is a huge reason) then the unemployment would sky rocket and there would not be so many new jobs in these areas.

The other thing that I was wondering about while reading what he wrote was on the per capita incomes. I don't know this for sure so perhaps someone else has some more knowledge and numbers, but are the people in the states he mentioned (NY, Conn, Mass) significantly more educated on average? More MBA's and such than in say Texas, GA, or AZ? Could that have something to do with that? I know Austin is ranked near the top for educated cities, but I'm not sure that is normal for these states.

[M II A II R II K]

I guess he's saying that it shouldn't be assumed that less regulations equate to higher productivity figures. But less regulation that pertain to housing prompts the sun belt to build more houses and increases their population that way ahead of the Northeast states.

[M II A II R II K]

‘Doubling Up’ in Recession-Strained Quarters


December 28, 2010

By MICHAEL LUO

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/us...&sq=luo&st=cse

- In February, after being evicted from their Gainesville apartment, Holly, James, Madison and their good-natured pit bull, Caley, moved into a cramped bedroom in the house where Holly grew up. Neither of Madison’s parents had been able to find work for more than a year. Of the myriad ways the Great Recession has altered the country’s social fabric, the surge in households like the Maggis’, where relatives and friends have moved in together as a last resort, is one of the most concrete, yet underexplored, demographic shifts.

- Census Bureau data released in September showed that the number of multifamily households jumped 11.7 percent from 2008 to 2010, reaching 15.5 million, or 13.2 percent of all households. It is the highest proportion since at least 1968, accounting for 54 million people. Even that figure, however, is undoubtedly an undercount of the phenomenon social service providers call “doubling up,” which has ballooned in the recession and anemic recovery. The census’ multifamily household figures, for example, do not include such situations as when a single brother and a single sister move in together, or when a childless adult goes to live with his or her parents.

- For many, the arrangements represent their last best option, the only way to stave off entering a homeless shelter or sleeping in their cars. In fact, nearly half of the people in shelters in 2009 who had not previously been homeless had been staying with family members or friends, according to a recent report, making clear that the arrangements are frequently a final way station on the way to homelessness. A New York Times analysis of census “microdata,” prepared by the University of Minnesota’s state population center, found that the average income of multifamily households in the records fell by more than 5 percent from 2009 to 2010, twice as much as households over all, suggesting that many who are living in such arrangements are under financial siege.

Holly Maggi, left, and her fiance, James Wilson, right, and their 21-month-old daughter, Madison, have moved in with Ms. Maggi’s parents, Jim and Kathy Maggi.

[mhays]

The "doubling up" phenomenon is very interesting.

On the plus side, many people doubled up for a while, including a lot of working people, and accumulated enough savings to move out. This is already returning some cities to apartment construction.

Much of the population growth in many cities around 2009-2010 is probably doubling up. As the economy ratchets up, many very healthy places will see population declines for this reason, even as their household numbers increase with lower vacancies.

[M II A II R II K]

What the Census Knows About Your Neighbors


January 4th, 2011

By John Pavlus

Read More: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662971/...the-city-block

Interactive By Neighbourhood: http://thistract.com/

The 2010 Census data was just released before Christmas, but Stamen designer Michal Migursky already has their infographics beat. His interactive census visualizer, ThisTract.com, mashes up numbers from the previous census with your web browser's built-in geolocation technology (not to mention a cornucopia of mapping and graphing APIs) to blow up your block into a small universe of personalized, visualized datapoints.

Migursky built the site as a kind of teaser for the 2010 Census data, and with any luck he's integrating the new info into his infographic as we speak. In the meantime, let your eyes and mind boggle at the depth of context ThisTract.com can generate out of an address typed into a simple text box: everything from housing and education to race, age and income; from the micro-level of an individual "tract" to the big picture of the U.S. as a whole. (Tracts are the informational "pixels" in a census: "the smallest territorial unit for which population data are available in many countries.")

[MolsonExport]

I'd love to see a parking lot spot to person ratio calculated for states/cities/USA.

[M II A II R II K]

Census Bureau releases alternative measures of poverty


January 4, 2011

By Carol Morello

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...rss=rss_nation

The Census Bureau took a baby step toward redefining what is considered poor in America on Tuesday when it released several alternative measurements of poverty, fundamentally revising a one-size-fits-all formula developed in the 1960s by a civil servant.

Under a complex series of eight alternative measurements, the Census Bureau calculated that in 2009, the number of Americans living in poverty could have been as few as 39 million or as many as almost 53 million. Under the official calculation, the census estimated that about 44 million were subsisting on incomes below the poverty line of about $21,750 for a family of four. The alternatives generally set the poverty threshold higher, as much as $29,600 for a couple with two children.

For the time being, the government will continue to use the original poverty definition to determine eligibility for federal programs. The alternatives are experimental and will be revised every year, eventually winnowing them to one. The bureau's move is expected to reignite a debate over whether to replace the current measurement, as was recommended in 1995 by a blue-ribbon panel from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The alternatives are offspring of the NAS report.

The current formula was devised by Mollie Orshansky, a civil servant in the Social Security Administration who took the cost of a "thrifty food basket" for a family of four and multiplied it by three. Her formula has been updated for inflation. It continues to harbor a number of quirks traceable to attitudes of a half-century ago, such as a $1,000 reduction in the poverty line for people older than 65, largely because Orshansky, an economist and statistician, believed older people eat less. The alternatives reflect a growing consensus among experts in the poverty field that the old formula does not adequately measure poverty in the 21st century.

For example, it does not take into account the impact of governmental anti-poverty programs, such as Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, school lunches, subsidized housing or income tax credits. Nor does it include a host of expenses typical in families with two working adults, such as child care, multiple automobiles and professional wardrobes. It also does not make any consideration for regional differences in the cost of living. Although the poverty measurement is largely of interest to academics today, it has the potential to alter our perceptions of who is poor, how persistent a problem poverty is and whether policies should be reordered.

.........

[ardecila]

The numbers for city populations are coming out this week.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by ardecila

The numbers for city populations are coming out this week.

This is what we all have been waiting for and it will fill our discussions here for some time to come just analyzing all this forthcoming information. Ten years of seeing changes in our cities firsthand all culminates in this official tally, as someone who actually worked for the census here in Chicago I have personal feelings about this on several levels. Every city has had an official population for ten years now and this information will stamp an official number on our cities for another ten years. Exciting times.

[LMich]

They are coming out in pieces, as they release the population for the states; they are required to have out all info by April 1, though, it'll be quicker.

Census: New Orleans population lower than expected

Last Update: 2/03 6:38 pm

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The 2010 Census count found that New Orleans' population stands at 343,829 people, a figure lower than expected that hints at the city's difficulties to repopulate since Hurricane Katrina more than five years ago.

That population figure is lower than demographers had expected. An interim Census count last year found the city's population standing at about 355,000.

The Census released data on Louisiana Thursday afternoon. The Census went to great lengths to count everyone in New Orleans due to the stresses the city had endured after Katrina.

In the 2000 Census, New Orleans had a population of 484,674 people. The new count shows a population decrease of about 30 percent and that will mean the city will lose political clout in redistricting and federal dollars.

Among the statistics:

-Ascension and Livingston parishes had the largest percentage of
growth, topping more than 39 percent.

-Orleans, Cameron and St. Bernard Parishes - all devastated by
the 2005 hurricanes - had the largest percentage drops in
population. Orleans lost 29 percent of its residents, Cameron took
a nearly 32 percent hit and St. Bernard lost nearly half of its
people.

-East Baton Rouge Parish is now Louisiana's largest, with more
than 440,000 residents.

Newark's population grew for first time in 3 decades, new census data shows

February 03, 2011

By Rohan Mascarenhas/The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — Newark’s population grew for the first time in three decades, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.

Newark remained New Jersey’s largest city, with 277,140 residents, a gain of roughly 3,600 people since 2000. Jersey City grew at a faster pace since 2000 and grew to 247,697, up from 240,055 in 2000.

...

BTW, the Census Bureau also said, yesterday, that were it not for growth in the minority population, New Jersey would have reported a net population loss, just one a few states where that would have happened.

[sofresh808]

Originally Posted by LMich

BTW, the Census Bureau also said, yesterday, that were it not for growth in the minority population, New Jersey would have reported a net population loss, just one a few states where that would have happened.

Wouldnt this to be true for most urban areas outside the south? Coming from California, I just expect this to be the case.

[mhays]

Outside the West as well as the South.

[hudkina]

Outside the west? The west owes its very existence to minorities! California has been losing its natural born white population for decades.

[SlidellWx]

Some interesting demographic notes for New Orleans now that the official numbers are out. The city and metro area has changed quite a bit due to Katrina. I was also happy to see that the official numbers matched closely to the estimates being produced by local and national demographers.

The city and metro are now more diverse...but also lost a huge segment of the black population. There are now 119,000 fewer blacks in the city compared to only 24,000 fewer whites. The Asian population stayed about the same, and the Hispanic population grew by around 3,000. For the metro area, the changes were just as dramatic. The most notable change was in the Hispanic population...which doubled from 4% to 8% of the population. There are now a little over 90,000 Hispanics in the New Orleans area...with Jefferson Parish housing roughly 54,000 Hispanic residents.

The other noted change was that there were fewer children in the metro area. The percent of children under 18 fell from 27% to 23% over the decade. This shows that many families never moved back after Katrina. Average household size also decreased in all parishes except St. Bernard Parish due to a lower number of families. This means that more single or childless couple households now reside in the metro area.

Parish by parish breakdown...

Orleans Parish (City of New Orleans)
Pop. 343,829

Black = 60%
White = 30%
Hispanic = 5%
Asian = 3%
Other = 2%

Jefferson Parish
Pop. 432,552

Black = 26%
White = 56%
Hispanic = 12%
Asian = 4%
Other = 2%

St. Tammany Parish
Pop. 233,740

Black = 11%
White = 81%
Hispanic = 5%
Asian/Other = 3%

St. Bernard Parish
Pop. 35,897

Black = 17%
White = 69%
Hispanic = 9%
Asian = 2%
Other = 3%

Plaquemines Parish
Pop. 23,042

Black = 20%
White = 68%
Hispanic = 5%
Asian = 3%
Other = 4%

St. Charles Parish
Pop. 52,780

Black = 26%
White = 66%
Hispanic = 5%
Asian/Other = 3%

St. John the Baptist Parish
Pop. 45,924

Black = 53%
White = 40%
Hispanic = 5%
Asian/Other = 2%