Free Press Editorials on Detroit Census Numbers

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Editorial: Census data offer bleak urban picture in Michigan

Overshadowed in last week's disclosure that Detroit hemorrhaged a full quarter of its population between 2000 and 2010 was a statewide flight from Michigan's cities. It is a demographic trend that has dire implications for the state's economic recovery -- and reversing it should be one of Gov. Rick Snyder's long-term priorities.

Among the state's 20 largest cities, only Sterling Heights, Wyoming, Rochester and Dearborn gained population over the last decade. Although no other Michigan city experienced an exodus on the scale of Detroit's, most lost residents at a far greater pace than the state as a whole.

Grand Rapids, the state's second largest city, lost 4.9% of its population, while the third-largest, Warren, shrank 3%. Flint lost more than 22,000 residents, an 18% loss that brought its population to a level last seen in the 1920.
Among Michigan's urban population losers, only Ann Arbor's people drain was proportional to Michigan's 0.6% population loss.

Michigan's experience is even more alarming when compared with that of other states. While some other Great Lakes cities [[notably Chicago and Gary) had steep population drops, most large cities grew, even in regions that lost residents as a whole.

In nearby Indiana, whose population jumped 6% during the last decade, many urban centers grew at an even faster clip. Fort Wayne's population leaped more than 23%, while Bloomington, home of the University of Indiana, grew 16%. Even Indianapolis, the state's largest city, managed a robust 4.9% growth.

City dwellers have been migrating to the suburbs for many generations, but it is simplistic and misleading to dismiss that trend as a simple expression of consumer preference for big yards and less congested neighborhoods. In Michigan, particularly, the exodus has been facilitated by government policies that subsidized sprawl and magnified the social and financial costs of city living.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/20110327/OPINION01/103270466/Editorial-Census-data-offer-bleak-urban-picture-Michigan?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Opinion



What more of the same means for Detroit's decay

RON DZWONKOWSKI

Detroit would keep shrinking, down to about 530,000 people, spread ever more thinly across the same 139.5 square miles but pockmarked by more than 110,000 empty homes and buildings.

Michigan's per capita income, in the top 10 nationally for decades, would be the lowest of the 50 states.

The population here would stagnate while the nation around it grew, diminishing Michigan's voice in Washington even further and likely reducing its share of federal funding for all manner of needs.

The state would keep aging, too -- so health care would account for an ever-larger slice of the economy. And employers seeking workers for jobs in the growing information, technology and knowledge-based sectors would keep looking elsewhere, in places where the populace is better educated.

If nothing changes, that's what changes.

If 2010 is just a point on a trend line, then the problems reflected in the census data released last week just get worse by 2020. The telltale numbers -- population loss, vacancies -- keep getting bigger. And the things that could be beacons for employers and investors -- growth and immigration -- remain weak, erratic and foreboding signals.

Albert Einstein classically defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Maybe that should be our interim state motto if all Michigan does between now and 2020 is stay the course.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/20110327/OPINION01/103270477/Editorial-What-more-same-means-Detroit-s-decay?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Opinion



City can't afford to bet on bigger census numbers

BRIAN DICKERSON
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

For too many Detroit leaders, that was the reflexive response to this last week's revelation that the city's population has plummeted to pre-World War I levels.

Mayor Dave Bing demanded a recount. Detroit-area legislators compulsively catalogued the myriad nooks and crannies in which census enumerators had likely overlooked card-carrying [[or at least service-consuming ) Detroiters. And City Council President Charles Pugh, in a moment of well-meaning candor that may haunt the rest of his political career, suggested that tens of thousands of missing residents might be sought out [[and reclaimed) in the state's teeming prison cells.

There was some merit in many of these claims [[although inmates have already been counted, in accordance with federal law, as residents of the counties in which they are incarcerated -- and one shudders to think what would actually happen if tens of thousands of ex-felons were abruptly repatriated to a city so utterly bereft of jobs, reliable public transportation, educational opportunity and mental health services.)

The high cost of low numbers

But the certitude that Detroiters had been undercounted sprang less from the demonstrated flaws in the census-takers' methods than from political leaders' fears about what would happen if the count stood.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/2011032...census-numbers



Census data is cold reality for Detroit

ROCHELLE RILEY FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


Last week, Detroit got the wake-up call that might finally force its leaders to govern the city that exists instead of the city they remember.U.S. census results revealed that Detroit has lost a quarter of its population -- 237,500 people -- since 2000.
It was the largest percentage loss ever for any American city with more than 100,000 residents, except New Orleans, which lost 29% or 140,000 people after Hurricane Katrina.
Detroit's crisis didn't result from hurricanes, but from slow-rising waters that threaten to drown the city:
• Higher insurance rates.
• Higher taxes.
• Poorer schools.
• Fewer amenities.
• Violent crime.
Rather than excoriate those who leave, Detroit leaders should work faster to fix what's wrong.

Call off the search

Mayor Dave Bing's immediate reaction was to declare that he'd search for nearly 40,000 residents the census must have missed. He needs at least 37,000 to continue operating under special laws written for cities of more than 750,000 people, including the ability to charge higher taxes.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...=2011103270511



Focus on making Detroit better

TOM WALSH
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

A hundred years ago, four northern industrial cities -- Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland -- were roughly the same size, ranging in population from 430,000 to 580,000.

That was soon to change, as Detroit blew by its peers with a period of explosive growth.
By 1950, the brawny Motor City had 1.85 million people -- more than double the size of Pittsburgh or Cleveland, more than triple Buffalo.

Detroit was king of the metal-bending belt, the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II and the automotive juggernaut in the boom years to follow.
But that was then.

Last week, a Wall Street Journal headline declared, "Detroit's population crashes," after 2010 census figures showed a 25% drop in the past decade. "Ghost town" was a popular term for the city in other news reports.





Continued at: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...=2011103270432