Tag Archives: census data

Questioning Census population estimates when they show declines in Illinois

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A story on Census population estimates for Illinois’ communities includes some pushback against the numbers:

Photo by Thiago Matos on Pexels.com

While the 2020 census counted responses from household surveys, the annual estimates between the 10-year counts are based in part on counting births, deaths, and moves in and out, using the number of tax returns and Medicare filings.

The numbers do not reflect the recent influx of 41,000 migrants bused and flown to Chicago since August 2022. Census methodology does not account for migrant arrivals. Immigrants are typically hard to count because they may be transient, may not speak English and may want to stay under the radar, researchers said.

Oak Lawn Mayor Terry Vorderer, for one, didn’t buy the new estimates, noting that his town has added new townhomes while not losing housing stock…

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office also threw water on the results, highlighting past faulty counts made by the Census Bureau.

“For the last decade, the narrative that Illinois is losing population was fed, by what turned out to be, inaccurate annual preliminary estimates,” Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough said in a statement. “Illinois remains one of the most populous states in the nation and is on the rise.”

International migration — which has risen nationwide — has nearly tripled in Illinois since 2021, Gough said. The state is in the process of challenging census data to ensure it receives adequate federal funding for programs like Medicare, affordable housing and homeland security, he added.

Is this about methods for counting populations or is this more about politics? For better or worse, these annual estimates have become media stories. Some places are gaining residents, others are losing. Communities with population loss have a hard time shaking all the associations that come with it. The implication is that population loss indicates decline and problems while growth is good.

On the other side, measuring populations is a sizable task. This is why so much effort is expended every ten years. The annual estimates have their own methodologies. They are estimates. This means there is some margin of error. These margins of error should be reported, even if the emphasis in the media continues to be on a concrete number of people gained or lost.

Census numbers might not be perfect but I would be interested in seeing the compelling evidence to suggest their estimates of population declines in some Illinois communities are far off or completely wrong.

Visualizing the migration flows in and out of DuPage County

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The US Census recently released data on county-by-county migration flows. The tables that can be downloaded are huge but here is a look at the flows in and out of DuPage County:

DuPageCountyMigrationFlows

Looks like a lot of movement to (and some from) warmer locales – southern California, Arizona, Florida – and lots of movement in the Midwest in an area roughly bounded by St. Louis, Detroit, and Minneapolis. You can also look at the migrations by education or income level.

Very cool all around. There is a lot of data to crunch here and these visualizations help make sense of a lot of data. At the same time, these aren’t necessarily huge movements of people. Take Harris County, home to Houston (4th largest city in the United States): over this five year span, there was a +88 flow from Harris to DuPage County.

Reaction to Newsweek’s list of “dying cities”

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Search for “dying city” and “Newsweek” and what you will see in the Google results is not the original article but rather reactions from some of the listed cities. Newspapers in South Bend, Rochester (NY), and Grand Rapids have voiced their displeasure.

This recent list from Newsweek is based on Census data and the cities that experienced the greatest population declines from 2000 to 2009:

We used the most recent data from the Census Bureau on every metropolitan area with a population exceeding 100,000 to find the 30 cities that suffered the steepest population decline between 2000 and 2009. Then, in an attempt to look ahead toward the future of these regions, we analyzed demographic changes to find which ones experienced the biggest drop in the number of residents under 18. In this way, we can see which cities may have an even greater population decline ahead due to a shrinking population of young people.

Here are the 10 cities that had the steepest drop in overall population as well as the largest decline in the number of residents under the age of 18.

Some thoughts about this data:

1. All of these cities, except two (one in FL, one in CA), are in the Rust Belt. Many of these cities are not surprises.

2. The local reactions seem to be expressions of civic pride. People in these cities can’t ignore the population loss but they are right in saying their cities are not going completely to waste. There are some good things going on in these places but broader population trends are working against them.

3. “Dying city” does not equal “dead city.” Dying doesn’t mean that everybody is leaving, just that these cities lead the country in percentage population loss. A real “dead city” would have no population left. These cities are from that point.

4. Perhaps what angers locals most is that articles like these can further negative stereotypes. These places already suffer from perception problems and lists like this do not help. For example, it is any surprise that Detroit continues to lose population after years of commentators saying how bad of shape Detroit is in? People probably leave places like Detroit for reasons more important than punditry (reasons like jobs, opportunities, etc.) but it could play some role.

More poor people now in suburbia

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American suburbs are often imagined as homes to primarily the middle and upper classes. However, new figures from the US Census suggests the number of poor people living in suburbs continues to grow:

The analyses of census data released Thursday show that since 2000, the number of poor people in the suburbs jumped by 37.4 percent to 13.7 million. That’s faster than the national growth rate of 26.5 percent and more than double the city rate of 16.7 percent…

Cities still have higher poverty rates — about 19.5 percent, compared to 10.4 percent in the suburbs. But the gap has been steadily narrowing. In a reversal from 2000, the number of poor people living in the suburbs now exceeds those in cities by roughly 1.6 million.

Analysts attribute the shift largely to years of middle-class flight and substantial shares of minorities and immigrants leaving cities in the early part of the decade for affordable housing and job opportunities in the suburbs. After the housing bust, their fortunes changed, throwing millions of people out of work.

To recap: in terms of absolute numbers, there are more poor people living in suburbs than in large cities. As a proportion of the population, cities have higher percentages of poor people compared to suburbs. And the number of poor people in suburbs has grown more since 2000 than the number of poor people in cities.

On one hand, these figures should challenge the typical images of suburbia as a wealthy paradise. On the other hand, there have always been some poor and working-class people in suburbs – this is nothing new, suggesting the typical image has always been somewhat wrong.

What will be interesting to watch is how suburban municipalities respond to the growing number of poor people.