Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

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alexschief
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby alexschief » March 26th, 2020, 11:42 am

How are these estimates looking for keeping a congressional seat in Minnesota?
Just comparatively, Minnesota's most recent number is below its average in the years since 2010, and that rate was projected to make Minnesota's congressional count almost a complete toss-up. So these numbers, even low by a couple thousand, are discouraging.

As Twincitizen writes above, the state is probably going to need numbers from the faster growing sunbelt states to be under what is expected. It's anybody's guess whether the coronavirus will level the playing field or sharpen the contrast between states that have been making a full-court press to count everyone and states that have taken a more lax approach.

twincitizen
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby twincitizen » May 20th, 2020, 5:33 pm

Met Council's 2019 preliminary estimates of population & households have been released! Happy Holidays to my fellow population nerds who celebrate.
Story: https://metrocouncil.org/News-Events/Co ... -2019.aspx
PDF/Excel spreadsheets: https://metrocouncil.org/Data-and-Maps/ ... mates.aspx

-St. Paul and Bloomington are now at their highest-ever population totals.
-The growth of Blaine is pretty incredible...you never really hear much about Blaine. I feel like you at least hear about Woodbury or Lakeville or Maple Grove from time to time.
-Plymouth is nearly out of undeveloped land for new subdivisions (NW corner of the city), but with redevelopment interest closer in could see enough multifamily development to potentially rival Brooklyn Park (79.5k vs. 82.4k) for the title of 2nd largest suburb (after Bloomington) over the next decade.
-Bloomington has its work cut out for it, but should be able to keep its crown. There's just so much untapped opportunity in Bloomington for denser mixed-use development along its major corridors. They need to stop giving TIF to the Mall and start giving it to developers who want to build mixed use on Lyndale, Nicollet, Penn, 98th, etc. which are all full of dilapidated, under-used commercial buildings. Short of a major housing recession, Bloomington should really have a goal for more growth in 2020-30 than in 2010-2020. They should be closing in on 100k by the time 2030 rolls around.

On vacancy rates:
According to the preliminary estimates, the region added 110,551 households between 2010 and 2019, but just 90,433 housing units. The remaining 20,118 households occupied existing housing, drawing down vacancy rates.

Vacancy rates dropped as the economy improved after 2010 and reached an estimated 3.8% in 2019, down from 5.8% in the 2010 Census. According to annual data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, vacancy rates in our region are at their lowest since the early 2000s and are some of the lowest in the country.
Lastly, it's going to be very interesting comparing these projections to 2020 Census actual, especially given the complications brought on by COVID. I still haven't heard anything about how the Census Bureau is going to handle in-person counts for households that don't respond. Exceptionally bad timing by this virus...though I do wonder if it's given a slight boost to completing it online. Lotta states still have very low self-response rates. Very over-generalizing here, but if a middle-of-the-road state has a self-response rate of 60-65%, that means as much as 35-40% of the population needs to be contacted by Census enumerators, either by phone or in person, usually literal door-to-door contact. That's simply not going to happen this time around, and Congress can't just delay the deadline for getting it done. By law, statewide counts must be submitted to the President in December.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby twincitizen » May 20th, 2020, 5:52 pm

Populations of the 5 largest cities 2019 (2018):
Minneapolis 435,885 (429,382)
St. Paul 315,925 (313,010)
Bloomington 90,271 (89,654)
Brooklyn Park 82,444 (81,679)
Plymouth 79,475 (78,351)

LakeCharles
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby LakeCharles » May 20th, 2020, 6:19 pm

Populations of the 5 largest cities 2019 (2018):
Minneapolis 435,885 (429,382)
St. Paul 315,925 (313,010)
Bloomington 90,271 (89,654)
Brooklyn Park 82,444 (81,679)
Plymouth 79,475 (78,351)
Wow. So the five largest cities combined to gain ~12k residents, and well over half of that was Minneapolis alone (~6.5k)

twincitizen
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby twincitizen » September 1st, 2021, 3:10 pm

I saw Minneapolis' 2020 results in the city-specific thread, but I'm surprised no one yet has posted other numbers. Met Council's 2020 Census home is here https://metrocouncil.org/Data-and-Maps/ ... -Data.aspx with data available in PDF and .xls forms.

They have an interactive map as well, but I found that the color gradient / key needs some adjustment for it to have any value (i.e. the population density map shows the same shade region-wide, except for maybe a half dozen super high density tracts around downtown & campus that show up darker).

7-County Region
2010 - 2,849,567
2020 - 3,163,104 (+11.0%)

Minneapolis
2010 - 382,578
2020 - 429,954 (+12.4%)

Saint Paul
2010 - 285,068
2020 - 311,572 (+9.3%)

You've probably heard that Bloomington (89,987) surpassed Duluth (86,697) to become MN's 4th largest city (again*), following Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rochester (121,395). But you may not have heard that Brooklyn Park (86,478) also nearly passed Duluth. I'd wager that as of today, 17 months past Census day, Brooklyn Park has already moved into 5th place ahead of Duluth. Plymouth is not far behind either at 81,026.

Woodbury (75,102), Maple Grove (70,253), and Blaine (70,222) also surpassed 70k for the first time. Lakeville (69,490) is now Dakota County's largest city, and all of these cities continue to grow like crazy. Edina and St. Louis Park both topped 50,000 for the first time in either city's history. Unlike most inner-ring/postwar suburbs, Edina has never once lost population.

*Interestingly, Bloomington was once, briefly, the 3rd largest city in Minnesota. In the 1990 Census, Bloomington edged Duluth by fewer than 900 people to take 3rd place, but by the year 2000 Bloomington had fallen behind Duluth and Rochester (which has grown by ~15,000 in four consecutive decades). Until climate crisis drives people to repopulate Duluth, it has little chance of re-entering the Top 5. Clearly the infrastructure is there for Duluth to hold a much larger population than it does today, having been over 100k from the 1920s-1970.

Also, this Wiki page has been updated with 2020 numbers, if you want to look beyond the 7-county data offered by Met Council: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _Minnesota

twincitizen
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby twincitizen » September 1st, 2021, 3:17 pm

Also, it's interesting to compare actual 2020 numbers to Met Council's 2019 estimates (upthread). Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington all came up short of 2019 estimates, while Brooklyn Park and Plymouth actually exceeded them, BP significantly so. It's tempting to run to the talking points of "the Trump administration messed up the Census" or "Immigrant communities may have avoided participating due to fears of questions regarding citizenship status" (both of which could be true!) But, the metro area as a whole and Minnesota statewide ended up exceeding estimates. Also, the state and cities/counties are heavily involved in Census promotion/awareness, going to great lengths to make sure people participated. It would appear that Met Council's model runs a bit hot for the core cities, and a bit cold for the largest / fastest growing suburbs.

LakeCharles
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby LakeCharles » September 1st, 2021, 6:48 pm

Also, this Wiki page has been updated with 2020 numbers, if you want to look beyond the 7-county data offered by Met Council: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _Minnesota
What the heck happened to Winona? Lost more residents than anywhere else in the state. Shrank more than 5%!

St. Cloud also dropped from 8th to 12th, and with only 26 more residents than Eagan, likely 13th now.

MNdible
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby MNdible » September 2nd, 2021, 9:44 am

Duluth will be an interesting city to watch over the next decade. By all accounts, its housing market has been red hot. And it has more opportunities for development and redevelopment than any of the built-out suburbs.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby Silophant » September 2nd, 2021, 10:24 am

Also, this Wiki page has been updated with 2020 numbers, if you want to look beyond the 7-county data offered by Met Council: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _Minnesota
What the heck happened to Winona? Lost more residents than anywhere else in the state. Shrank more than 5%!

St. Cloud also dropped from 8th to 12th, and with only 26 more residents than Eagan, likely 13th now.
I wonder if Winona got wrecked by the census offically counting on April 1st, when college students had largely moved home due to the pandemic. Though, Bemidji appears to have been spared that fate, so I guess I don't know.
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twincitizen
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby twincitizen » September 2nd, 2021, 1:48 pm

That was my first thought. Even though the Census count date is April 1 (barely two weeks into the pandemic from Minnesota's perspective), it would have been extra difficult to do any follow-up counts for people who hadn't completed theirs online prior to that date, due to so many students having moved away from campus by the time those follow-up attempts occurred. The college campus factor could also help explain why Minneapolis and St. Paul's (and Winona's) populations wound up a little lower than Met Council's forecast, but the metro and state as a whole met or exceeded forecasts.

I'm curious though if this college factor played out elsewhere. Would be interesting to see data from various-sized college towns around the country. Of course you have to weigh against other factors, like whether that particular town's non-college population was growing, stagnant, or shrinking. e.g. A rapidly growing town wouldn't show a net population loss due to poor census response from college kids, it would show up as less growth than expected. So I'm guessing Winona isn't growing as rapidly, as say, Mankato, which showed plenty of gain.

Now that I think about it, the option to complete the Census online probably saved it from being a total lost cause. It was so easy to fill out.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby Korh » September 6th, 2021, 11:36 am

Just a random thought but how many people do places like Bloomington and Brooklyn Park need to add before they are treated like actually cities instead of just suburbs.
I'm sure someone can think of a good list of criteria but it does seem silly that there are places with more people than Duluth but aren't considered a proper city.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby thespeedmccool » September 6th, 2021, 10:42 pm

Under Minnesota law, cities become "Class A" once they cross 100,000 people. It's a designation they retain unless they drop below 80,000.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby MNdible » September 7th, 2021, 10:12 am

And the "unless they drop below 80,000" part was added later specifically so that Duluth could maintain its Class A status.

alexschief
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby alexschief » September 7th, 2021, 1:02 pm

That's the technical explanation, but I read the question as psychological. Places like Bloomington are full of people, but I think that people don't think of them as particularly urban, and consequently not as cities. Bloomington has some high rise office towers scattered along 494 and in the South Loop, but really lacks a high density core. It has some multi-family housing, but no real neighborhoods that are typified by them.

People don't really put a lot of stock into municipal boundaries. Even if Bloomington has six digits of people or whatever, nobody will be saying "the Triplet Cities" unless it were to develop a recognizably urban center. This is sort of similar to how the Inland Empire is one of the largest MSAs in America, but nobody thinks of any of those cities as truly a "city," because Riverside etc. don't really have all of the essential features of what we think of as an American City.

I think people envisioned the South Loop as like that, but it's got a long way to go and is so peripheral to the municipality's boundaries that I think it might only ever be seen as an airport-adjacent business district of the kind you can find in a lot of places.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby Didier » September 7th, 2021, 9:16 pm

I’d argue that the airport and MOA anchor a pretty clear third major center in the metro, especially with it being connected by rail. And yet I also agree it’s not close to being equal with either of the two downtowns.

alexschief
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby alexschief » September 8th, 2021, 8:27 am

I think actually Southdale is a stronger node, in terms of jobs + housing, than the South Loop/MOA area.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby fehler » September 8th, 2021, 8:53 am

Southdale isn't in Bloomington.

LakeCharles
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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby LakeCharles » September 8th, 2021, 10:16 am

Southdale isn't in Bloomington.
I think the point was that Southdale is actually the 3rd largest jobs/housing node in the Twin Cities, thus further diminishing Bloomington's status as a "city" versus just a suburb.

Bloomington has a lot of people, and a decent number of jobs, but almost all the jobs are on the 494 strip, which is split between Richfield, Edina, Eden Prairie and Bloomington, which contributes to not being immediately identifiable as one place.

Similar to the buildings along 394, spread amongst many cities, they both just feel like "businesses along highways outside Minneapolis" rather than a particular place.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby Didier » September 8th, 2021, 10:57 am

I guess my point was just that MOA/MSP airport feel as much like the third prong to a Twin Cities triangle as anywhere.

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Re: Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

Postby xandrex » September 8th, 2021, 11:27 am

Bloomington already gets named in the Census for our metro area, does it not? Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington. But I think that in the absence of some sense of place, it's hard to give a suburb like Bloomington the psychological distinction of being a "city." It's a large suburb with a substantial presence of office parks and a megamall.


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