A reader comment on census data

Sorry for the light (/lack of) posting. Hopefully that’ll change soon. In the meantime, here’s a reader comment from a post a few weeks ago on whether or not dense areas are gaining population:

I worked for the US Census Bureau in Central Los Angeles last year. Census Bureau management hired about 70% of authorized staffing, failed to distribute census materials in a timely manner or in accordance with published manuals, failed to hire sufficient numbers of foreign-language speakers sufficient to conduct canvassing effectively, and yet demanded that Census results be generated just as quickly in poor, high-density neighborhoods with large numbers of non-English speakers as in affluent suburban neighborhoods. And we wonder why Census numbers show relatively small amounts of growth in cities?

I don’t have time to go really in depth with this, but this is a very common criticism of census figures. Here’s an About.com piece about undercounting in Brooklyn for the 2010 census. They identify three undercounted groups: immigrants, Hasids, and people who just recently moved into flashy new high-rises. Considering that these are exactly the three groups you’d imagine to be growing the fastest, this may mean there was considerable undercounting.