Dience

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Census data
  • Census results
  • Census tract
  • Census benefits
  • Census commission

Dience

Header Banner

Dience

  • Home
  • Census data
  • Census results
  • Census tract
  • Census benefits
  • Census commission
Census data
Home›Census data›Colorado’s mountain towns feel more crowded than ever, but census data shows the population has barely changed

Colorado’s mountain towns feel more crowded than ever, but census data shows the population has barely changed

By Maria M. Sackett
May 17, 2022
0
0
Creede City Administrator Janelle Kukuk found her 2020 U.S. Census form hanging on this post as she exited her out-of-town property in August 2021. Although Creede had a response from 85% in the census, Kukuk thinks it could have been a higher percentage if the forms had been better delivered.
Dean Krakel / Special for The Colorado Sun

Mick Ireland knows the streets of Pitkin County. The 30-year-old former Aspen mayor and politician has knocked on the doors of thousands of his neighbors over the years, promoting candidates and ballot issues as well as helping register voters.

So when the 2020 census report showed whole blocks in Pitkin County — not city blocks, but the small geographic areas into which the US Census Bureau divides the country — with zero populations, it took some note. Using the county’s geographic information system – GIS – mapping, he began to find more blocks across the county that appear to have been missed by the 2020 census. In some blocks, the census counted fewer than houses despite new construction.

“I know those buildings just haven’t gone away. My estimate is that around 1,000 people have not been counted,” said Ireland, who is working with county leaders to put together a detailed list that could become an official 2020 census challenge.



Other counties are doing the same. After enumerators struggled to count every U.S. resident for them during the chaotic pandemic, more Colorado counties are seeing discrepancies with the tally that will determine how many federal dollars are given to communities. (The 2010 census showed that 316 federal spending programs relied on the 2010 tally to distribute about $1.5 trillion in annual spending. Colorado receives about $19.2 billion a year in funds guided by the census, which equates to about $3,500 per capita.)

So a count that misses 1,000 in Pitkin County could cost the county $35 million over the next decade.



Read the full story via The Colorado Sun.

Categories

  • Census benefits
  • Census commission
  • Census data
  • Census results
  • Census tract

Recent Posts

  • Funding for councils at risk due to ‘undercount’ in census data
  • The results of the first census show an increase of 17,500 in the population of Shropshire
  • Census results reveal population increase in England and Wales
  • The Australian Nepalese diaspora has doubled in five years
  • ‘Extreme caution’ is advised over census data collected during the pandemic, although the ONS said it had ‘full confidence’ in its figures

Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • October 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2016
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions