LoginData expert argues U.S. Census Bureau must change its methods for Detroit to get accurate population count
A federal judge recently dealt another blow to the city of Detroit’s continuing challenges of its U.S. Census Bureau population estimates.
The court rejected Detroit’s argument against what’s known as the “County Cap” rule.
That’s where the Census Bureau reduces the population estimate of all cities in a given county to match the total amount of people living in the county as a whole.
Census expert Kurt Metzger has studied Detroit’s population size for almost half a century.
He says although Detroit officials lost the most recent court battle, they have won other efforts to show more people are moving to the city.
(Interview edited for length and clarity.)
Kurt Metzger: The city was getting screwed because homes that were demolished were being counted against them and rehabs weren’t being credited to them. The Census Bureau thought that these were part of the housing stock they counted in 2020. If you knock them down, then they should count against you. If they were rehabbed, sorry, we’re not going to give you credit for it. I believe, looking at the housing unit count from the 2020 census, that the Census Bureau did not count a lot of them.
What happened was, houses were reported as a demolition in 2022 and they counted it against the city. But when you rehabbed a house and somebody moved in, the city said these houses were not counted in the 2020 census either because most of them were in bad shape. They didn’t qualify as housing units. They didn’t have windows, they had roof problems and things like that. But since then they were brought back into the housing stock and should be credited.
So all that went to change the whole methodology that the Census Bureau uses. Older cities and the Rust Belt cities that had tremendous disinvestment and tremendous vacancies now are gonna start getting credit for housing that they’re bringing back into stock. And that has really driven up the number of housing units estimated for the city of Detroit. But now we’re getting screwed because of this “county cap.” It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: The judge in that case ruled that the Census Bureau’s use of the county cap was “neither arbitrary and capricious nor intentionally discriminatory.” Do you agree with that?
KM: I have to believe that. I don’t think it’s intentionally discriminatory. I think it does discriminate against older communities and poorer communities. The Census Bureau, for county estimates, matches Internal Revenue Service records. “You lived in a county one year, where did you live the next year?” They use those numbers as part of their estimates for migration. We argue that Wayne County’s population doesn’t follow standard migration numbers. Our argument is that poor counties are undercounted because of the methodology the Census Bureau uses for domestic migration. So, you could say that there is discrimination, but it’s not intentional.
QK: Detroit officials say that by doing that, the Census Bureau is undercounting the city’s population by almost 30,000. Do you think that’s correct?
KM: I do. First of all, I think that the census itself undercounted the city by 25,000 to 30,000 people, based on some of the research we did on vacancies and the way the census was conducted. But this whole rollback each time kind of builds upon itself. If we just played out to the numbers that the Census Bureau is giving us in housing and didn’t do all these county caps, yes, easily 30,000 more population.
QK: What else is tied to showing that more people are in the city than what the Census Bureau estimates? Why is a more precise estimate important?
KM: If for nothing else, it’s for public relations. A growing city is much more attractive than a city that’s losing population. It was always hard to make the case Detroit is a great city, you ought to come here, when we had just finished the 50th or 60th straight year of population loss. And we still come up with high poverty rates, plus a number of other factors. So, it’s turning around that kind of impression, I think even more so for some of the suburban and rural residents of Michigan. It’d be nice to get people in Michigan to have a better view of Detroit. And I think they’re finally coming around. We tend to be our own worst enemies going out there and bad-mouthing Detroit. But I think the impression of Detroit is improving. People feel much better about things. You go to ball games and you stay around and you go to a restaurant. So, there’s the local buzz.
But obviously it’s going to bring more money in for programming, because many funding programs are based on population or have population in the formula. The higher you go, the more money you get. It’s certainly going to attract more people. We’ve been trying to attract retail to Detroit’s Woodward Corridor, right?
QK: With all of your experience dealing with the Census Bureau, do you think there’s a realistic possibility of it changing some of its methodology? Or is it that they’ve done it for so long in a certain manner that it’s just the way it’s going to be?
KM: It’s a pretty closed operation. Because of confidentiality restrictions and everything, it’s been very “black boxy.” Numbers go in, but you never know exactly what the Census Bureau did during the interim to come up with their final number. I think the Bureau is constantly doing tests. The problem is you have nothing to compare it to until you get to the census. But I think the Bureau needs to seriously consider changing the methodology they use or certainly come up with some other options.
On the other side, the question is do they have the funding? Does Congress even care? They’ve already been cut on their pre-2030 tests. They’re talking about using the U.S. Postal Service to do census work. The problem is there’s so many other funding issues that go on, the idea of federal research is not really highly valued, it seems, these days.
I’m hoping that they will continue to have the funding and the support for those units that are doing this work. Because I think that the methodology has to change or has to be updated, the sooner the better. I certainly don’t expect it to happen before the 2030 census though.
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