2010 U.S. Census thread

[golden eagle]

The only thing that's been released at this time is the population of the nation (308,745,538) and populations of individual states that you can see by rolling your mouse over each state. Every state except Michigan gained population, but was still good enough for 8th place. I thought Michigan would've been passed up by either or both Georgia and North Carolina (9th and 10th, respectively), but they will very soon. The top ten:

1. California
2. Texas
3. New York
4. Florida
5. Illinois
6. Pennsylvania
7. Ohio
8. Michigan
9. Georgia
10. North Carolina

Nevada grew the fastest at 35% over its 2000 numbers, while Rhode Island was the slowest gainer at .4%

I was hoping Georgia would've hit the ten-million mark, but they will soon. I didn't realize North Carolina was growing as fast either. They're not too far behind Georgia in population. There are still just seven states with ten million or more. Conversely, Montana just missed out being a millionaire state, so we still have seven states with less than a million.

Can't wait for the city and county breakdowns when they become available.

[algorerhythms]

Fun fact: West Virginia has fewer people now than in 1940.

[Michael in Philly]

I was hoping Georgia would've hit the ten-million mark, but they will soon. I didn't realize North Carolina was growing as fast either. They're not too far behind Georgia in population. There are still just seven states with ten million or more. Conversely, Montana just missed out being a millionaire state, so we still have seven states with less than a million.

Does Montana still have just one House seat?  Because if so that would make it the most-populous Congressional District.  (And Georgia ten million?  Really?  When did that happen?)

Can't wait for the city and county breakdowns when they become available.

Nor can I - keep us posted.
I was looking the other day for cities over 100,000 in the 2000 census, and couldn't find it easily.  If you know your way around the site....

[mightyace]

Fun Fact #2: The District of Columbia is the densest entity on the map at 9,856.5 people per square mile.

Of course, most of us already new DC was the densest place in the country!

Fun Fact #3: New Jersey is the densest STATE at 1,195.5 per square mile.

I'll let that number speak for itself.  (ducks)

[golden eagle]

I was hoping Georgia would've hit the ten-million mark, but they will soon. I didn't realize North Carolina was growing as fast either. They're not too far behind Georgia in population. There are still just seven states with ten million or more. Conversely, Montana just missed out being a millionaire state, so we still have seven states with less than a million.

Does Montana still have just one House seat?  Because if so that would make it the most-populous Congressional District.  (And Georgia ten million?  Really?  When did that happen?)

Can't wait for the city and county breakdowns when they become available.

Nor can I - keep us posted.
I was looking the other day for cities over 100,000 in the 2000 census, and couldn't find it easily.  If you know your way around the site....

Montana (as well as the other six states below one million) has only one House seat. Each House seat is supposed to have at least 500K in population, so them missing out on one million people may not get them an extra seat. But you never know how reapportionment may go. Doing some Google searching, I saw some articles where Utah will gain a House seat, while Pennsylvania will lose one.

Georgia hasn't hit ten million yet, but they tend to add at least 100K each year mainly due to Atlanta's soaring population. When 2020 comes around, I think we'll be talking about 11 million, if not more. Same with North Carolina, which actually slightly outgrew Georgia percentage-wise by a razor thin margin (18.5% to 18.3%). Despite NC's growth, they're expected to stay at 13 seats.

BTW, the Census Bureau's website isn't the most user-friendly out there. I did see a Twitter post from 1/20 about how journalists should get ready for next month's big release, so maybe that's when we could expect to see the city and county breakdowns.

[golden eagle]

Fun fact: West Virginia has fewer people now than in 1940.

One thing I found fascinating was how Nevada's population grew by over 93% from 1900-1910, but fell 5.5% in 1920. But since the 1950, Nevada has increased by at least a third in every census count.

[SP Cook]

West Virginia:  The three counties closest to DC gained so much population as to off-set the population loss in the rest of the state.  But for this territory, included almost by accident and closer to the capital of five other jurisdictions than its own, the state would have lost a greater %age than Michigan.  WV will lose another 40% of its population in this generation.

Nevada:  87% of the population of Nevada lives in Clark County (Las Vegas).  In the 2000 redistricting Nevada had three districts, two entirely in Clark and one with a few rural areas in Clark and the entire rest of the state, the largest district in the country (other than states that have only one seat).  The 2010 deal, with four seats, will be the same.

Delaware:  Has never been redistricted.  Has always had either one or (briefly in the 1800s) two seats, always elected at-large.

Reapportionment (among the states, not the redrawing of the districts within, which is a matter for the state legislatures) is already out.  NY and OH -2, MA, NJ, PA, MI, IL, IA, LA, and MO -1; TX +4, FL +2, SC, GA, AZ, UT, NV, WA +1.

California:  First time California has not gained at least a seat.  Ever.  Close to losing one.

[Michael in Philly]

West Virginia:  The three counties closest to DC gained so much population as to off-set the population loss in the rest of the state.  But for this territory, included almost by accident and closer to the capital of five other jurisdictions than its own, the state would have lost a greater %age than Michigan.  WV will lose another 40% of its population in this generation.

Which somehow reminds me that there's a radio station in Harrisburg, Pa., that carries Pittsburgh Steelers games, and five NFL teams (one of them in the same state) that are closer to Harrisburg than the Steelers are.

I realize that's irrelevant....

[yanksfan6129]

Divide 308,000,000 by 435 and you get the ideal population per congressional district. That's 708,000 per district. So obviously, some states like Montana (which has too much for one but not enough for another) and Wyoming (not enough for one district even) get over or under represented per capita in Congress.

[triplemultiplex]

The redistricting question has me wondering how much would the population of the United States have to increase before they would just straight up add congressional seats rather than trying to redistribute the 435.  Keeping the number at 435 has been gradually causing us to be underrepresented.  Especially since they take seats away from states that didn't necessarily lose population, but rather were stable and just 'outgrown' by others.
At this point, we should be adding seats to the House rather than punishing states with steady population.  States should only be losing seats if they lose population.

[Chris]

Will San Jose clinch the 1 million mark? In 2009 it had a population of 965,000. It's funny how there are 52 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, while the 52nd largest city has a population of only 356,000 (St. Louis). I'm also wondering if Houston will pass Chicago as the third largest city proper in the U.S. and if the DFW metro area will surpass the Chicago metro area. Houston has a larger city proper but Dallas / Fort Worth have more suburbs. Most of suburban Houston seems to be unincorporated as opposed to the DFW area by the way.

[golden eagle]

The redistricting question has me wondering how much would the population of the United States have to increase before they would just straight up add congressional seats rather than trying to redistribute the 435.  Keeping the number at 435 has been gradually causing us to be underrepresented.  Especially since they take seats away from states that didn't necessarily lose population, but rather were stable and just 'outgrown' by others.
At this point, we should be adding seats to the House rather than punishing states with steady population.  States should only be losing seats if they lose population.

Congress fixed the size after the 1910 Census to put the cap at 435. Interestingly enough, the Constitution called for a representative for every 30,000 people. You'd have over 10,000 congressman if that were the case now! Maybe they should cap it at 500. But then again, Congress is so unpopular that people may shoot the idea down. I'd bet most people would rather shrink the size of Congress rather than grow it.

[golden eagle]

Will San Jose clinch the 1 million mark? In 2009 it had a population of 965,000. It's funny how there are 52 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, while the 52nd largest city has a population of only 356,000 (St. Louis). I'm also wondering if Houston will pass Chicago as the third largest city proper in the U.S. and if the DFW metro area will surpass the Chicago metro area. Houston has a larger city proper but Dallas / Fort Worth have more suburbs. Most of suburban Houston seems to be unincorporated as opposed to the DFW area by the way.

1. I get the feeling San Jose will miss out on a million, but won't be too far away from it to where they may achieve it in a year or two.

2. I don't think Houston will pass Chicago right now. I think we're about 15 years away at the soonest from that happening.

3. DFW being larger than Chicago is likely, but I don't know how soon that will happen.

[yanksfan6129]

The redistricting question has me wondering how much would the population of the United States have to increase before they would just straight up add congressional seats rather than trying to redistribute the 435.  Keeping the number at 435 has been gradually causing us to be underrepresented.  Especially since they take seats away from states that didn't necessarily lose population, but rather were stable and just 'outgrown' by others.
At this point, we should be adding seats to the House rather than punishing states with steady population.  States should only be losing seats if they lose population.

Congress fixed the size after the 1910 Census to put the cap at 435. Interestingly enough, the Constitution called for a representative for every 30,000 people. You'd have over 10,000 congressman if that were the case now! Maybe they should cap it at 500. But then again, Congress is so unpopular that people may shoot the idea down. I'd bet most people would rather shrink the size of Congress rather than grow it.

The trouble with increasing the number of House seats now is simply a lack of space in Congress--literally. They would need to build more office space and possibly expand (or make smaller seats in) the actual room-the floor of the house.

[Duke87]

The redistricting question has me wondering how much would the population of the United States have to increase before they would just straight up add congressional seats rather than trying to redistribute the 435.  Keeping the number at 435 has been gradually causing us to be underrepresented.  Especially since they take seats away from states that didn't necessarily lose population, but rather were stable and just 'outgrown' by others.
At this point, we should be adding seats to the House rather than punishing states with steady population.  States should only be losing seats if they lose population.

Historically, seats have typically been added whenever states are added. But we're not adding states anymore.

[vdeane]

Not true.  When Alaska and Hawaii were added, the house did expand to 437 temporarily, but after the next census they went back to 435.  And the reason it was capped at 435 is because it would be difficult for the house to do business at a larger number.

[english si]

We have 650 MPs in the House of Commons, and while the Government wanted to reduce it to 500, that didn't pass and was mostly as a cost saving measure (and a way of getting the seats of equal size - Labour safe seats are smaller on average than Tory safe seats - by about 20%. You have a few Scottish and Welsh seats that are around the 20-30k mark, and the Isle of Wight at 100k, and the average home-counties commuter belt seat around 70k. Urban seats are usually less populous than rural seats (50-60k in England, normally). What's bizarre is that the boundary commission won't split the Isle of Wight into 2 seats of 50k (which is below average but not by much, without doing the 'unthinkable' and adding some mainland areas to it) yet were happy to split a seat in Wales in two, creating one of the seats with less than 30k).

The US House of Representatives can manage with 500 if it can manage with 65 less at the moment.

[mightyace]

I assume that part of the reason for the 435 number is the size of the house chamber.

If I'm not mistaken, the senators also sit on the house floor during joint sessions like the recent State of the Union message.  That would imply that the house floor can seat at least 535.  (plus non-voting members like DC)  Of course, if you added 100 reps, where would the senators sit in a joint-session?

Does anyone know what is the capacity of the house chamber?

[J N Winkler]

My understanding is that when the number of members of the House of Representatives was capped at 435, this was solely because of the physical size of the House chamber--at the time office space for members was not a prime consideration (in fact I think most of the House and Senate office buildings postdate World War II and the mother of a family friend, who is now in her late eighties/early nineties, can remember working as a typist in the Capitol basement when she was young).

I don't think the public will stand for an expansion of Congress, and the Capitol building is too iconic for teardown or radical remodelling.  In any case, the problems with Congress are far deeper than the mere number of representatives in either chamber.  Congress now has a large and unaccountable bureaucracy which shadows that of the executive branch (most of those House and Senate office buildings were erected to accommodate the staffers who populate that bureaucracy).  Moreover, the seniority system, which is a comparatively recent innovation (dating from Cannon's regime in the early twentieth century, I think), gives incumbents unwarranted advantages.  Plus the disparities in population density between the most populous and least populous states are so much greater than in 1790 that the current system of territorial representation in the Senate has itself been called into question.

Most of the reforms that were considered and pushed through in state legislatures in the early twentieth century have passed Congress by.  For example, Congress is not bound by a single-subject rule.  Congress also transacts private business (which has by and large been tapered down if not abolished outright in most state legislatures because of nineteenth-century abuses), though that has tailed off sharply since the early 1970's and is now used largely to resolve difficult immigration cases.  Both chambers in a typical state legislature are bound by the rule of one person one vote, which limits the ability of rural districts to exercise a stranglehold over legislative business.  A mere increase in number of representatives will not change these institutional factors and the number would have to increase by at least an order of magnitude to have a perceptible effect on retail politics within the districts.

[J N Winkler]

I assume that part of the reason for the 435 number is the size of the house chamber.

After making the post above, I did some Google searching to see if I could find a fire-marshal's capacity estimate for the House chamber.  Notwithstanding my comment above, I am beginning to suspect that the physical-size rationale for the 435-member cap is one of those myths that high-school civics/US History teachers push out as fact, like the claim that Alexander Hamilton was ineligible for the Presidency because he was born in the Virgin Islands.

If I'm not mistaken, the senators also sit on the house floor during joint sessions like the recent State of the Union message.  That would imply that the house floor can seat at least 535.  (plus non-voting members like DC)  Of course, if you added 100 reps, where would the senators sit in a joint-session?

It is also my understanding that the senators do sit on the House floor.  A few considerations come to mind:

*  The seating density that is acceptable for a ceremonial speech by the President may not be considered an acceptable density for transacting ordinary business.  (The House chamber has to seat more than 535 + nonvoting delegates on this occasion, BTW--there are also nine Supreme Court justices and the President's special guests, for example.)

*  What proportion of the 535 members of Congress actually show up for the State of the Union?  (Was Michele Bachmann there, for example?)

*  Both chambers have public galleries.  I do not know if these are, in fact, open to the public during the actual State of the Union address.  Presumably, if a higher working density was accepted for the House chamber, these galleries could be closed to accommodate the senators during nonvoting joint sessions.  Alternatively, joint sessions could convene in an offsite venue, such as a convention hall (offsite sessions were very common in the nineteenth century since the Capitol was not finished until after the Civil War).

[Michael in Philly]

I have some knowledge of constitutional history, and a law degree I'm not using, so weighing in....

That 30,000 referred to in the Constitution was a minimum:  each representative has to have at least that many constituents.  Which was reasonable for a country of 3 or 4 million people.  Since the country was growing so fast - nearly doubled in population between 1790 and 1800 alone - district size started increasing right away.  I know that in the apportionment that followed the 1850 census (which was in effect for the 1860 election, which I'm familiar with because of the Civil War), New Jersey had five House seats (seven electoral votes) for a population of about half a million.

I'm guessing the origin of the 435 was simply that that was the size of the House when Congress decided to freeze it.  It expanded with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959 (because the alternative would have been to take seats away for other states) but dropped back to 435 the next time seats were reapportioned (after the 1960 census for the election of 1962).

At the State of the Union, guests of the President tend to sit in the gallery (with the First Lady), but not only Senators, but Supreme Court Justices, the Cabinet, and I believe some diplomats sit on the floor for the occasion.  (I didn't watch it this year - a bit off politics at the moment.)

[J N Winkler]

I found additional information which addresses the point about capacity constraint in Congressional buildings--opening dates for the House and Senate office buildings.

House

*  Cannon:  1908

*  Ford:  1940 (but not occupied by Congress until after 1974)

*  Longworth:  1933

*  Rayburn:  1965

Senate

*  Dirksen:  1958

*  Hart:  1982

*  Russell:  1909

The timing of the Cannon and Russell buildings is very close to the timing of the apportionment statute (PL 62-5, passed in 1911) which fixed the 435-member cap on the House.  In fact the Wikipedia article on the Cannon building explicitly attributes its construction to overcrowding in the Capitol itself.  And although the list above confirms my suspicion that the majority of the House and Senate office buildings have been occupied by Congress and its staffers in the postwar years, the Dirksen office building (notwithstanding its 1958 opening date) had been in the pipeline since just before 1941.

Wikipedia needs detailed floor square-footage figures for all of the Congressional office buildings, but has it just for the Dirksen building, so I am not presently able to develop this analysis to include utilization of floor square footage.  Wikipedia however implies that the institutional basis for Congressional staffing was created by the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946.

[Brandon]

I think it's high time we revisited the number of 435 for the House.  As it stands right now, states that grow, but grow slowly, lose seats to faster growing states.  It's an unfair system, and as the population of the US grows, it means less representation for the People, those for whom the House was originally supposed to represent.  I think the Framers would be pissed to know that the People are getting less representation in the House meant for such representation.  I believe we should have at least on Representative per 500,000 people, or a House of about 600 Representatives.  It would be fairer than what we have now, and would add Representatives at a slow but steady rate.  Screw the overcrowding of the House chamber - we can always add on to it.

[corco]

I would say that any argument that says that congressional representation should be hindered because of infrastructure limitations is a bunk argument, especially in this day and age. The infrastructure should be designed to meet the role of the government, not the other way around.  There is no excuse whatsoever for that being the case. Absolute worst case scenario is we could have representatives telecommute.

[mightyace]

Absolute worst case scenario is we could have representatives telecommute.

Yes, and they could telecommute from the beach in Maui, Cancun, Jamaica, Bermuda, etc.