DETROIT – The city of Detroit will likely succeed in adding several thousand residents to its population through its challenge to the Census count of 713,777, but the chances of adding enough residents to get the city’s population above 750,000 are low, State Demographer Ken Darga said Friday.
In an interview, Darga said there are some glitches in the Census count both locally and around the country that Detroit – and every community – should check to see whether they occurred.
“I think the chance is very good that they could find some correctible errors,” he said. “I would be very surprised if they found 35,000 people worth of correctible errors.”
There are three types of errors a local government can use to change their count. The first, a boundary error, is showing up in other states and could be an issue for Detroit. These are instances where a Census tract in Detroit was counted toward a bordering community. Another potential error is the assignment of housing units and other group quarters, like prisons, to the wrong unit of government. That was a significant problem in the 2000 Census, and Darga said he expects those issues to be minimal this time.
But the third category of error is one that could offer the ability for additional numbers for Detroit: processing errors. These are instances where housing units in local community databases for whatever reason did not show up in the Census data. Historically, such errors are small, Darga said, but at a Washington conference of state demographers, “several thousand” housing units were found to be missing in this fashion.
“What we are going to suggest is communities look carefully at the number of housing units in each block to see if there are any unexpected decreases or any discrepancies with the community’s own data,” he said.
Most of the Census data met expectations, Darga said. After all, the Census does an annual estimate so demographers generally have an idea of what to expect in each community.
But the one surprise was Detroit, which fell by 25 percent from the 2000 Census.
“Yes, I was surprised because that is a huge drop,” Darga said.
The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments estimates populations for the Detroit region and has long estimated Detroit’s population well below the Census. Most recently, its estimate was 772,000 for the city. Meanwhile, the Census estimate had put the city still above 900,000.
Indeed, one of the surprises in the Detroit data was that in 2007, the city challenged its Census estimate, which showed population falling and succeeded in an upward revision of the population to near 920,000. Darga said that situation – when virtually everyone suspected there was no way the city had suddenly reversed decades of population decline – prompted the Census to suspend its estimating model for when a city challenges the estimate.
In the challenge, Detroit paradoxically submitted data showing a lower number of housing units than what the Census had.
“That was actually something that highlighted to the Census that there was something wrong with their methodology,” Darga said. “Even with a lower number of housing units, which is one of the prime things that drives this methodology, it still produced a higher estimate. That was kind of a wake-up call to the Census Bureau that the alternate methodology had to be reviewed.”
Some long-term trends continued in the Census, like the explosive growth in the exurban areas of Detroit as well as Ottawa and Grand Traverse counties.
But some trends from the 1990s reversed in the most recent decade, perhaps most notably in northern Michigan.
Ten counties in northern Michigan that grew by more than 10 percent in the 1990s lost population in the last 10 years, some significantly so. Those counties were Alcona, Arenac, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Clare, Crawford, Gladwin, Montmorency, Oscoda and Roscommon.
Darga said one factor could be that retirees are much less mobile than they were in the 1990s. It’s harder for them to sell their homes in other parts of the state, and harder to secure financing on a new home. Another factor for the northeast Lower Peninsula is the economy, which has been especially hard hit.
The northwest Lower Peninsula has fared better because of the strength of Traverse City, Darga said.
“One of the factors that helps the west side of the state is Traverse City itself where you have a good combination of natural resources with a fairly large city that has all of the amenities and opportunities that you look for in a city,” he said.
Another interesting piece of data was that while most counties in the Upper Peninsula shrunk, Marquette, Baraga and Houghton counties grew. Northern Michigan and Michigan Technological universities are in that area, and that could have helped maintain population, Darga said. Likewise, Central Michigan University deserves considerable credit for Isabella County maintaining its strong growth, he said.
Darga said the new numbers also could mean greater transportation funding for the Grand Rapids and Midland areas. Midland might have grown enough to be a metropolitan county.
In west Michigan, Kent, Newaygo, Ionia and Barry counties are part of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area. As a result of the Census, conceivably, Ottawa, Montcalm, Allegan, Oceana and Muskegon counties could be added.
“It could potentially be a huge metropolitan area,” Darga said.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
a>>
