2020 Census results

KriterionBOS

KriterionBOS

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Anyone else surprised/disappointed to see the official 2020 census has Boston at a mere 675K, while the 2019 estimate was up around 692K?

NYC somehow shattered expected growth with 8.8M (estimates were in the 8.3 to 8.4 range).

Suburbs like Cambridge, Quincy, and Worcester all grew more rapidly than Boston proper so it will be interesting to see if the MSA population crosses the 5 million mark.
 
KriterionBOS said:
Anyone else surprised/disappointed to see the official 2020 census has Boston at a mere 675K, while the 2019 estimate was up around 692K?
Click to expand...

I heard that students were undercounted because many had already decamped for home because of covid when the census came around.
 
Yeah, many went home in April s the counts came in a lot lower. However, the undercount was pretty much all made up by Worcester who came in at 206k.. a nearly 22k undercount.

Lawrence also was undercounted by 10k (89k), and Revere (63k), Quincy (102k), Lynn (101k), New Bedford (101k) were all undercounted by a cumulative 32k people.
 
A big part of the reason why Boston's population is so low is because the city limits are so close to the central core. If Boston redrew it's border out to 495 or beyond, then you'd be talking about 4-5 million people. For instance, Boston is probably more densely packed and urbanized than Houston, but Houston has multiple times the population because the city limits go halfway to Dallas. If you didn't know where the city borders were, Boston would appear to be right up there with the bigger US cities in terms of size/population, but because of its' tiny area it will never appear so on paper.
 
Looks like the MSA (Greater Boston) population was tagged at 4.94 million. Just under 5 million!

Blackbird said:
I heard that students were undercounted because many had already decamped for home because of covid when the census came around.
Click to expand...

If you include the missing COVID students, the MSA population would probably go past 5 million and Boston past 700,000 probably. You'd think there are at least 60,000 college students in the area if Northeastern alone has 30K.
 
PT1987 said:
A big part of the reason why Boston's population is so low is because the city limits are so close to the central core. If Boston redrew it's border out to 495 or beyond, then you'd be talking about 4-5 million people. For instance, Boston is probably more densely packed and urbanized than Houston, but Houston has multiple times the population because the city limits go halfway to Dallas. If you didn't know where the city borders were, Boston would appear to be right up there with the bigger US cities in terms of size/population, but because of its' tiny area it will never appear so on paper.
Click to expand...

Yeah, add in at least the surrounding cities and towns and see what the metro area really looks like.
 
Caught this in a national news article, though it really hasn't been publicized locally --

Census rejecting some big-city complaints of 2020 undercounts
abcnews.go.com

Census rejecting some big-city complaints of 2020 undercounts

Some of America's largest cities that challenged their 2020 census numbers are hearing back from the U.S. Census Bureau
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com

The important part being --

Officials in Boston, a hub of higher education, believed the 2020 census missed more than 6,000 students living in university housing and 419 inmates at local jails. The Census Bureau approved the submission from Boston, which had 675,647 residents in the 2020 census, of which the city claimed 41,776 were students living in student housing.

Does this mean that Boston's 2020 Census count is officially bumped up by about 6,400 to approximately 682,000?
 
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