2024 Census bureau population estimates

KriterionBOS

KriterionBOS

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I just noticed that the most recent population estimates for US metropolitan areas all have seemed to increase significantly in the past year. Obviously, the sun belt cities in the South have been experiencing tremendous growth for well over a decade now, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of the coastal cities have also registered positive growth for most, and slowed negative growth in the others (NYC, Chicago, LA). This makes logical sense given the pandemic is now over...

Boston's metro population is currently estimated at 5.025 million, increased from the official 2020 census count of 4.94 million.

Does that sound right? Or does this seem like an over-estimate for Boston?
 
I think 2020 was super noisy and a lot of the urban exodus was either overstated or has reversed somewhat since peak pandemic. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all.

Not that you're saying this, but there's a lot in the zeitgeist about urban areas and blue states shrinking with people leaving for places with perceived better quality of life. I think it's a 10 year cycle to really see these changes. Let's also not forget that as congressional seat/electoral vote number changes, it doesn't mean that a state losing seats is losing population, just that other states are growing faster and the count is zero sum.

I'm more interested in how Boston proper changes and when/if we surpass our peak of ~800,000 in ~1950. Doesn't look like that's in the metropolitan data.
 
KCasiglio said:
I think it's impossible to tell such a small change in such a large area based on vibes. The Boston MSA is borderline useless as a geography.
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You can get a general feel though based on things like "there used to not be as much traffic on such and such road at this time of day..." or "why is the T always packed nowadays" or "no one seems to be riding the T these days".
 
Justbuildit said:
I think 2020 was super noisy and a lot of the urban exodus was either overstated or has reversed somewhat since peak pandemic. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all.

Not that you're saying this, but there's a lot in the zeitgeist about urban areas and blue states shrinking with people leaving for places with perceived better quality of life. I think it's a 10 year cycle to really see these changes. Let's also not forget that as congressional seat/electoral vote number changes, it doesn't mean that a state losing seats is losing population, just that other states are growing faster and the count is zero sum.

I'm more interested in how Boston proper changes and when/if we surpass our peak of ~800,000 in ~1950. Doesn't look like that's in the metropolitan data.
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Excellent points. I do remember the 2019 Boston proper population estimate was 690K and then when the actual [COVID] census came out in 2020/21 the actual population was down to 654,000. So it will be interesting to see if Boston can cross 700K by 2030.

The MSA increase could also be people moving from outside into the burbs or from Boston out to the collars. So an spike in the MSA doesn't necessarily mean that Boston's actual population is also increasing.
 
KriterionBOS said:
You can get a general feel though based on things like "there used to not be as much traffic on such and such road at this time of day..." or "why is the T always packed nowadays" or "no one seems to be riding the T these days".
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What about when traffic and T ridership are both down and the population is rising? Like as is the case right now?
 
KCasiglio said:
What about when traffic and T ridership are both down and the population is rising? Like as is the case right now?
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Well that seems paradoxical so I'd ask how we know that population is actually rising???
 
KriterionBOS said:
Well that seems paradoxical so I'd ask how we know that population is actually rising???
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Changing work patterns have both A: flattened out demand across the day more, so there is less of a peak hour factor and B: work from home. I'm sitting in my living room right now. From 5 days in to 2. That's not everyone, but it's a statistically significant bunch.

I trust the ACS. I don't envy the travel demand modelling folks on how to actually use this though.
 
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