Census estimate wrong, Boston gained population

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Mike

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Menino was right: Census estimate wrong, Hub gained population

By Michael Levenson and Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff


The Census Bureau, after being challenged by Boston officials, acknowledged today that it had underestimated Boston's population and released a new tally that shows the city gained residents in the first half of the decade.

The bureau had earlier estimated Boston had lost some 30,000 residents between 2000 and 2005. But the new tally showed Boston gained about 7,500 residents during that period, increasing its population to an estimated 596,638.

The Census said it revised its estimated tally after city officials submitted new data demonstrating that thousands of new housing units had been built in the city in recent years.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino hailed the new tally as a psychic boost for a city that has endured a steady stream of Census Bureau data suggesting the Hub has been losing residents. Menino had long argued that the Census Bureau routinely undercounted immigrants, public housing residents, and students, who make up a significant portion of the city's population. In a statement, Menino said the implication of the new tally are "huge" because they directly affect the way the federal government allocates aid to the city.

"Today's action by the Census Bureau confirms what many residents and private sector leaders felt intuitively -- that Boston is in fact gaining share as a center of global competitiveness," Menino said.



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Mike said:
Menino was right: Census estimate wrong, Hub gained population



"Today's action by the Census Bureau confirms what many residents and private sector leaders felt intuitively -- that Boston is in fact gaining share as a center of global competitiveness," Menino said.



Link
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can you imagine menino actually trying to phrase this sentence?
 
I'm doing my part!

I'm going to do my part to increase Boston's population, starting tonight.
 
When Boston gets back up to the 1.2 million it once had (1940-50) maybe it'll be time to break out the champagne.
 
^ :? Bostons population peaked at 800,000 in the '50's.

The problem is not the number of housing units but that the number of people per unit continues to shrink.
 
M. Brown said:
Looks like its gonna break 600k. NiCe :)
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I am reading a book right now called "Cities without Suburbs" by david rusk, former mayor of albequerque (obviously that is spelled wrong, but i cant guess any better than that as to its true form). In it, he argues for cities becoming more "elastic"; by that he means having more aggressive and visionary annexation policies. He argues that cities like San Diego and Anchorage/Houston/ Raleigh etc have all grown exponentially as a result of capturing there suburban growth by annexation. This he believes allows for more unified vision in the region when it comes to planning and zoning, which can lead to less segregation and less of an income by income neighborhood layout. Maybe so, but for a place like Boston to worry about hitting the 600k mark, when a city like houston (a couple million, right?) encompasses a hundred times the square mileage of boston is ridiculous. In other words, boston is one of the densest cities in the country, and that density holds on for miles outside of the city boundaries, so in my book it is way more populous than most cities in the country. it has a very large metro area, which i believe ranks in the top ten, and that is what we should be looking at, because a lot of the heavy hitter cities are really more than one municipality...they are entire counties pretending to be cities. How many people live between eastern massachusetts, northern rhode island, and southern new hampshire and maine? that would be the true population of boston if it were operating under the same land quantity of somewhere like anchorage, which in the last 50 years has added over 1,000 square miles to its city limits. boston has, what, 50 sm?
 
Wrong direction

I think we should DE-secede neighborhoods such as Allston-Brighton, West Roxbury, Roslindale and Hyde Park, and South Boston and East Boston, too. They have nothing in common with downtown Boston. The needs and wants of the Boston Proper neighborhoods are ignored at the expense of the outer boroughs.
 
You can walk to South Boston from downtown Boston. It's closer than Roxbury.
 
Re: Wrong direction

IMAngry said:
I think we should DE-secede neighborhoods such as Allston-Brighton, West Roxbury, Roslindale and Hyde Park, and South Boston and East Boston, too. They have nothing in common with downtown Boston. The needs and wants of the Boston Proper neighborhoods are ignored at the expense of the outer boroughs.
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I know nextr to nothing about the organization of boston neighborhoods, but when you say the needs and wants of bostons inner city neighborhoods are ignored for the needs and wants of the outer neighborhoods, do you mean in terms of city services? If so, my question then becomes: what if boston did de-seceede those neighborhoods, then it might be left with a tax base so low that it could only barely afford to keep up the roads that surround the downtown business district that is obviously used by everyone else? are the inner city neighborhoods the poorer ones? sometimes this is the case, but often times poorer neighborhoods have been pushed to the fringes during urban renewal programs of the past and thats why i ask. if they are the poorer neighborhoods, than i say to shrink in size to just the core would definitely be a bad thing to do.
 
In this instance, the opposite

The inner areas of Boston are the wealthier ones. The Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and, to a certain extent, the South End.

Ron, I think we should build a big barricade between Boston and South Boston, and not let them across. I think alot of them would be happy with it, as long as they got their Dunkies and scratch tickets.

I have never been able to work out the numbers, but it seems to me that the downtown neighborhoods pay more in property taxes than what they receive in services. I'm not saying they shouldn't, since they are the wealthier people. Unfortunately, at the same time, the wealthier people seem to just pay and ignore the problems the city faces - if they don't have children (myself included), they don't bother with the schools; they just assume they are bad. Yes, I'm sure you can find me an anecdotal example of someone who is involved, who doesn't have children.

I think Dorchester could be self-sustaining. It has 60,000 residents, many of them homeowners, now. Allston-Brighton could do it. South Boston, maybe, or it could just fall into the ocean, for all I care. East Boston could make money off the airport. Charlestown ... I dunno.

Hyde Park may have given us a mayor, but little else. I think New Hampshire is closer to Boston than Hyde Park, isn't it?

Hyde Park, Roslindale and West Roxbury can either merge or try it on their own.

I think it's a fun exercise to think about. I often do it on 1/2 day trips to Rozzie Square.
 
Oh, another thing ...

Roxbury is another question. For historical reasons, I think it should be a part of Boston, obviously, but at the same time, the powers that be in that neighborhood have suggested, on at least two prior occasions, that they'd like to go it alone. Mandela, remember?

They'd start off in the hole, and were expecting state and federal assistance to help them survive. Not a great beginning.
 
i was under the impression that places like places like charlestown and Dorchester, among other neighborhoods, were at one time "going it alone." that is, I thought many of the neighborhoods outside of the main part of the city used to be separate towns...if this is indeed the case, they could obviously do it again, with a little work, for sure. But it might not be good if city services like emergency rescue and police etc were operating under different governments. also, roads, infrastructure etc...howabout these? it may also increase segregation if the richer parts of boston were to break off of the other sections and only had to worry about their rich (and probably mostly white) constituents when making policy decisions and approving certain types of housing. Just an idea I have been readin about lately, not sure if it would in fact work out that way though. Also, I have heard on numerous occasions that DOT has closer to 95,000 residents. is 60,000 a more accurate measure of that town/neighborhoods pop?
 
Neighborhood Boundary Maps

Patrick said:
i was under the impression that places like places like charlestown and Dorchester, among other neighborhoods, were at one time "going it alone." that is, I thought many of the neighborhoods outside of the main part of the city used to be separate towns...if this is indeed the case, they could obviously do it again, with a little work, for sure. But it might not be good if city services like emergency rescue and police etc were operating under different governments. also, roads, infrastructure etc...howabout these? it may also increase segregation if the richer parts of boston were to break off of the other sections and only had to worry about their rich (and probably mostly white) constituents when making policy decisions and approving certain types of housing. Just an idea I have been readin about lately, not sure if it would in fact work out that way though. Also, I have heard on numerous occasions that DOT has closer to 95,000 residents. is 60,000 a more accurate measure of that town/neighborhoods pop?
Click to expand...

Here is a map of Boston boundary changes through 1926. I apologize for the quality of the scan--be sure to click the image for a larger view. Redoing the neighborhood boundaries would require the return of South Boston to Dorchester, most of the Back Bay to Roxbury (another map of the Roxbury/Boston boundary can be found here) the Kenmore Square area to Brookline, and a number of other adjustments which would be problematic, although the return of the Back Bay would certainly be welcomed by an independent Roxbury.

c. 95,000 people is about right for Dorchester.
 
I love that map, thanks for posting it. I am reading a book about Boston right now, well sorta, its about some irish guy frowing up in "southie" and the way he describes it in the book is by saying more or less that it is completely separated from the rest of the city by some bridge or something. says downtown is only a few miles away but worlds apart. also said that all the non white people packed their bags and left after some busing riot or something. the book takes place in 1979. did south boston used to be not predominantly white (or is it even that way today?). From my experience, a lot of cities in the northeast have a south boston type area, with numerous three deckers, a strong irish working class history, and lots of problems. in burlington, vt, it would be the north end, in portland it would be munjoy hill, in manchester, nh i saw a few areas like this, and a lot of other mid size cities appear to have similar neighb0orhoods from what i can gather in pictures. Im assuming bostons "southie" must be the largesdt, though, what is its population?
 
Southie has been overwhelmingly white and Irish for many decades. Only in the last 5-10 years has that started to shift. The Broadway Bridge separates it from the South End.
 
Ron Newman said:
Southie has been overwhelmingly white and Irish for many decades. Only in the last 5-10 years has that started to shift. The Broadway Bridge separates it from the South End.
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The West Fourth Street Bridge, which turns into East Berkeley Street in the South End, was the site of the first bridge connecting South Boston to Boston, as shown on the map illustrating my post Building Bridges to South Boston as the Dover Street bridge. Be sure to click to enlarge the map.
 
If they de-secede Roxbury, does that building become "Roxbury Police Headquarters"? :p
 
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