777,493

[Gistok]

Read all about it here: 777,493

Detroit is well on its way to stealing Antarctica's method for success. Among Antarctica's successes are no failing schools, no budget issues, no corruption, no blight, no crime, no poverty, and the lowest taxes in the world. If Detroit continues on this path it too will be able to claim the same successes that Antarctica can now claim. Those looking for a Detroit devoid of crime and poverty are but a few short decades away until their dream coming true.

Did you even UNDERSTAND the entire article before starting you Detroit bashing?? The gist of the article is the large variance on the results of 2 different ways of estimating Detroit census populations for the same year, and nowhere in the article did it say which one was correct.

Funny that.... but that wouldn't have fit into your "dumping on Detroit" mentality, now would it?

[Crumbled_pavement]

Did you even UNDERSTAND the entire article before starting you Detroit bashing??

Who is bashing Detroit proper? I'm bashing the entire Metro Detroit area.

[professorscott]

The Census Bureau, which I would consider a fairly authoritative source, has Detroit at 912,062 as an estimated population on July 1, 2008, the last year for which they give an estimate. Based on the Census estimate the population has been decreasing for the past few years at a few thousand per year. Their 2000 Census number was 951, 270. So to have suddenly dropped by well over a hundred thousand is unthinkable.

If you think the population is suddenly well under eight hundred thousand, then either you must believe the Census Bureau information for the past eight years is wildly inaccurate, which I do not, or you must believe there was a sudden mass exodus of historic proportions since July 2008, which the rental truck people will tell you there was not.

So I think 777,493 is fiction, and I would say something within 5% of Census Bureau estimates is probably as realistic a number as we're likely to see until the next official census report is published after the 2010 census.

[crawford]

The Census Bureau, which I would consider a fairly authoritative source, has Detroit at 912,062 as an estimated population on July 1, 2008, the last year for which they give an estimate.

No, both estimates are U.S. Census estimates.

The 912,000 figure and the 777,000 figure are both from the U.S. Census, but use vastly different sampling methodologies. The Census does not indicate which is more "correct", and strongly cautions against using either number.

The 912,000 figure is the regular annual estimate. The 777,000 figure is part of the American Community Survey, which is basically the building block of the 2010 estimate.

Personally, I think the "real" population [[to be revealed for 2010) is much closer to 777,000 than 912,000.

The 912,000 figure sounds ridiculous to me. It would indicate that the city of Detroit has basically had a stable population for 20 years, which sounds absurd. Detroit had roughly a million residents in the last years of the Young administration. People really think that the population hasn't dropped much since then?

[professorscott]

The Census Bureau absolutely does weigh in on that issue:

"Although the ACS produces population, demographic and housing unit estimates, it is the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program that produces and disseminates the official estimates of the population for the nation, states, counties, cities and towns and estimates of housing units for states and counties. The ACS should be used to examine housing characteristics and demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the population."

The Population Estimates Program is the 912000+ number.

[Meddle]

The Census Bureau, which I would consider a fairly authoritative source,

They're still a U.S. Government agency, right?


And you consider them accurate?