2010 U.S. Census thread

[J N Winkler]

I wonder how municipal functions are carried out in towns like Lost Spring (population 4) and Van Tassell (population 8).

[agentsteel53]

I wonder how municipal functions are carried out in towns like Lost Spring (population 4) and Van Tassell (population 8).

I would imagine Olnes City is an extremely autocratic place.

[US71]

I wonder how municipal functions are carried out in towns like Lost Spring (population 4) and Van Tassell (population 8 ).

Probably a neighboring community carries out most of that.

[Michael in Philly]

I wonder how municipal functions are carried out in towns like Lost Spring (population 4) and Van Tassell (population 8).

If you read French, check French Wikipedia for the so-called "villages morts pour la France" - villages that died for France.  There are about half a dozen municipalities in Lorraine that became completely depopulated as a result of the battle of Verdun (I suppose the locals were evacuated or just left on their own and never came back).  The municipalities still exist as such, with the prefect of the department taking responsibility for running them, the main responsibility being the local roads.

(In this article under "Meuse": http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villages_fran%C3%A7ais_d%C3%A9truits_durant_la_Premi%C3%A8re_Guerre_mondiale)

[golden eagle]

Some analysis of the first few population trends released:

Louisiana: The southeastern parishes around New Orleans experienced massive population losses due to many who evacuated the area due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 not returning back. While Orleans Parish's (same as the city of New Orleans) population did bottom out after Katrina and is back on the rise, they now rank third among the most populated parishes in Louisiana, behind East Baton Rouge and Jefferson parishes. In fact, Jefferson Parish is among a select few suburban parishes/counties that is now larger than the county of its central city. Arapahoe, CO is on the verge on of doing this, too, but I don't think it will happen with this census.

Mississippi: Growth here is mainly in suburban Jackson, the Pine Belt, Gulf Coast (sans Harrison County, which lost population) and northwest Mississippi (including Desoto County). Mississippi's net growth can be contributed to northwest Mississippi experience spillover growth from Memphis and some metro New Orleans growth spilling into Pearl River and Hancock counties.

New Jersey: Only two counties (Cape May & Bergen) lost population. Cape May joined Salem County as the only two in the state with less than 100K in population. Nothing else really stood out to me.

Virginia: Most of the growth here is concentrated in the northern part of the commonwealth near Washington, around Richmond and in the Tidewater area. No real surprises here.

[NE2]

How does a city exist with only 16 people?

By filing annual reports with the state.

[corco]

Probably a neighboring community carries out most of that.

In the case of Van Tassell it's entirely governed by Niobrara County. There's a post office in Van Tassell that delivers mail to the zipcode, but everything else is just county. I suppose they could form a city government if they wanted to, but there's absolutely no need to.

They do officially have city streets (or at least they are inventoried by WYDOT as such- I know because I actually performed the inventory for WYDOT  ) but they are maintained by the county.

[J N Winkler]

If Van Tassell is not governmentally independent, then what is the basis for what appears to be a city limit sign with "POP 8"?  (In general, are we to expect such signs to be used for Census-designated places without any indication of whether they are incorporated or not?  If so, what is the basis for estimating population when the place is unincorporated?)

Michael--thanks for the heads-up regarding the depopulated villages in northern and eastern France.

[golden eagle]

Whenever I see a city limit sign, especially with population, I've always assumed it is incorporated. I've always seen CDPs and other communities on highway signs with just the name of the community and nothing else.

[NE2]

According to http://www.niobraracountylibrary.org/history/index.php?id=30 Van Tassell was incorporated in 1916 and has a mayor and four council members.

In Florida incorporated places have the text "city limit" on signs (whether it's officially a city or something else, since it makes no difference in Florida). I don't remember if any unincorporated places (or incorporated places, for that matter) have population estimates on signs, but they don't have "city limit".

[huskeroadgeek]

There is a town in Nebraska called Monowi that has a population of 1. It is incorporated, which means it technically has a government and directly receives state funds. The sole resident(a woman-her husband died several years ago) serves all of the functions of government and receives the state funds and uses the money to contract out the services(primarily for upkeep of the town's streets and a few streetlights). The town does have one business-a bar/cafe that the woman runs. Law enforcement(what little is needed) is provided by the Boyd County Sheriff's Department(even many larger small towns in Nebraska contract out with the local sheriffs department for law enforcement).

[corco]

If Van Tassell is not governmentally independent, then what is the basis for what appears to be a city limit sign with "POP 8"?  (In general, are we to expect such signs to be used for Census-designated places without any indication of whether they are incorporated or not?  If so, what is the basis for estimating population when the place is unincorporated?)

Van Tassell actually is a town and evidently has some local government according to NE2's article (although I know for sure the county maintains the roads). I wasn't aware of that (and had been told otherwise), but that seems like just as good a source as the person I heard it from.

One thing in Wyoming that I thought to be the case for a while that turns out not to be true is that just because the area has the ELEV/POP sign the area may not actually be an incorporated community. In the case of Van Tassell it is, but Buford for instance is just unincorporated Albany County. It somehow got a city limit sign, but it is in no way incorporated as a city. Off the top of my head- Emblem is another with deceptive signing, as is Banner/Story/Big Horn up in Sheridan County (although I have to believe Story and Big Horn have some form of local government).

[golden eagle]

There is a town in Nebraska called Monowi that has a population of 1. It is incorporated, which means it technically has a government and directly receives state funds. The sole resident(a woman-her husband died several years ago) serves all of the functions of government and receives the state funds and uses the money to contract out the services(primarily for upkeep of the town's streets and a few streetlights). The town does have one business-a bar/cafe that the woman runs. Law enforcement(what little is needed) is provided by the Boyd County Sheriff's Department(even many larger small towns in Nebraska contract out with the local sheriffs department for law enforcement).

I remember seeing that on the news before.

As I doing a Wikipedia search on Monowi, I also came across a list of other towns in the U.S. that have ten people or less. One such town is Luckenback, Texas (pop. 3). It's the namesake of a country song from the 1970s.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Some analysis of the first few population trends released:

Louisiana: The southeastern parishes around New Orleans experienced massive population losses due to many who evacuated the area due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 not returning back. While Orleans Parish's (same as the city of New Orleans) population did bottom out after Katrina and is back on the rise, they now rank third among the most populated parishes in Louisiana, behind East Baton Rouge and Jefferson parishes. In fact, Jefferson Parish is among a select few suburban parishes/counties that is now larger than the county of its central city. Arapahoe, CO is on the verge on of doing this, too, but I don't think it will happen with this census.

Which parish leads in population now; EBR or Jefferson?

[golden eagle]

EBR now leads, with Jefferson not too far behind.

[golden eagle]

New census info for Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa and Vermont released:

http://2010.census.gov/news/press-kits/redistricting.html

[Stephane Dumas]

The city population of Chicago falls http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312904576146741729857936.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

Someone at http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=5166681&postcount=20 posted a map from the Chicago Tribune showing the changes of population of various cities in the area. (The map don't include the Wisconsin and Indiana parts of Chicagoland)

[SP Cook]

Texas is the next up (along with South Dakota).  Remember that Texas gains 4 seats (gets to draw four districts with no incumbent) and most all of the population growth is urban and sub-urban, meaning districts can easily be drawn in all sorts of contorted ways.

[relaxok]

Not really replying to anything in particular but, last night I wrote a massive automation task using census data, inparticular the 2010 TIGER shapefile data available via ftp site.

Basically my end goal was creating a list of every single unique road name in the U.S., with additional accumulations by county and state level, along with the number of times they show up (usually as a road ID in the roads dbf, meaning each time that road name appears in a CDP - which could be the same road, or just a road with the same name, if that makes sense)

It was a fun task and I spent all night on it.. (it's all Excel VBA if anyone's curious)

My *first* 'holy hell!' moment was because I started doing it by hand (doing a few major counties that would contain a high % of the total names, like L.A. County, etc.) and then realized that I would never finish, or at least, it would take a year or two to do it by hand..  I had *no* clue how many counties or county-like entities existed.  The TIGER site separates the road and map shapefile data by county, so I had to come to terms with this number - I guessed in the 800-900 range figuring most states had like 10-15 counties with larger ones having 30-40.   If you could believe it, there's around 3221 counties in the U.S. + Puerto Rico.   Maybe that number is well known to some of you, but I was quite surprised.

Anyway, I'll post my numbers later tonight or ASAP.

[oscar]

If you could believe it, there's around 3221 counties in the U.S. + Puerto Rico.   Maybe that number is well known to some of you, but I was quite surprised.

3143 counties and county equivalents (including D.C., independent cities, Louisiana parishes, and Alaska boroughs and census areas) in the 50 states + D.C., plus about 78 municipios in Puerto Rico. 

[Stephane Dumas]

Here the list of various cities census I saw at http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=5168091&postcount=388

Chicago city, IL: 2,695,598 (-200,418)
Indianapolis city, IN: 829,718 (+37,792)
Baltimore city, MD: 620,961 (-30,193)
Washington D.C.: 601,723 (+29,664)
Oklahoma City city, OK: 579,999 (+73,867)
Virginia Beach city, VA: 437,994 (+12,737)
Tulsa city, OK: 391,906 (-1,143)
New Orleans city, LA: 343,829 (-140,845)
Newark city, NJ: 277,140 (+3,594)
Fort Wayne city, IN: 253,691 (+47,964)
Jersey City city, NJ: 247,597 (+7,542)
Norfolk city, VA: 242,803 (+8,400)
Baton Rouge city, LA: 229,493 (+1,675)
Chesapeake city, VA: 222,209 (+23,025)
Richmond city, VA: 204,214 (+6,424)
Des Moines city, IA: 203,433 (+4,751)
Shreveport city, LA: 199,311 (-834)
Aurora city, IL: 197,899 (+54,909)
Little Rock city, AR: 193,524 (+10,391)
Newport News city, VA: 180,719 (+569)
Jackson city, MS: 173,514 (-10,742)
Sioux Falls city, SD: 153,888 (+29,913)
Rockford city, IL: 152,871 (+2,756)
Joliet city, IL: 147,433 (+41,212)
Paterson city, NJ: 146,199 (-3,023)
Naperville city, IL: 141,853 (+13,495)
Alexandria city, VA: 139,966 (+11,683)
Hampton city, VA: 137,436 (-9,001)
Cedar Rapids city, IA: 126,326 (+5,568)
Elizabeth city, NJ: 124,969 (+4,401)
Lafayette city, LA: 120,623 (+10,366)
Evansville city, IN: 117,429 (-4,153)
Springfield city, IL: 116,250 (+4,796)
Peoria city, IL: 115,007 (+2,071)
Norman city, OK: 110,925 (+15,231)
Elgin city, IL: 108,188 (+13,701)
South Bend city, IN: 101,168 (-6,621)

[golden eagle]

I'm rather surprised Chicago lost as many people as it did.

[3467]

Chicago and downstate plunged the subrubs and exurbs boomed Kendall doubled. Its a county of 114,000 with only some recently 4 laned sections of US 34
If Kendalls growth was not slowed by the hosuing crisis I wonder how much bigger it would have been by 2010.
It alos shows sprawl can occur before the highways

[golden eagle]

Texas data released

Five largest cities:

Houston, 2,099,451 (7.5%)
San Antonio, 1,327,407 (16%)
Dallas, 1,197,816 (.8%)
Austin, 790,390 (20.4%)
Fort Worth, 741,206 (38.6%)

Five largest counties:

Harris, 4,092,459 (20.3%)
Dallas, 2,368,139 (6.7%)
Tarrant, 1,809,034 (25.1%)
Bexar, 1,714,773 (23.1%)
Travis, 1,024,266 (26.1%)

San Antonio has solidified its lead over Dallas as the state's second-largest city. While the Big D has a 400K-plus lead over Austin & Fort Worth, is is possible that both or either city (with their double-digit growth percentage) could be larger than Dallas someday?

Dallas County has a 559k-plus lead over neighboring Tarrant County, but just as it could be possible for Fort Worth to top Dallas, could Tarrant overtake Dallas County as well?  

[Stephane Dumas]

I'm rather surprised Chicago lost as many people as it did.

I spotted these articles from the Associated Press and Chicago Sun-Times about the subject,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGe569O82We8XQma1KvWUKl9SiWg?docId=8fa760d649f7447d814fe27b3b6a3760
http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/3854589-452/not-surprised-about-black-migration-to-burbs.html