SIMONSON SAYS: Counting on the Census for Construction Clues

The Census Bureau has begun to provide detailed locality and other data about population changes between 2000 and 2010. As of February 22, population changes by county and city were available for 13 states, with seven more expected this week and the rest by the end of March. Census posts a map for each state showing the percentage gain or loss in population by county. This information is potentially valuable to contractors looking to find opportunities. Even states that have continued to grow much faster than the nation as a whole, such as Texas, have many counties that lost population in the last decade. In the states for which data has been released so far, the greatest population growth has generally occurred around the largest cities. However, the big cities themselves have sometimes lost population. In each year other than a decennial census year, the Census Bureau estimates state populations based on a variety of administrative records. This month, the Bureau released a table showing the difference between each state’s population as recorded in the decennial census and the estimate from the administrative records. The national total was very close—an increase over the estimates of less than 0.1 percent. But there are much larger differences in some states: an increase over the estimate of 4.7 percent (63,000 people) for Hawaii, 3.1 percent for North Dakota (21,000), and 3.0 percent for Wyoming (17,000). The largest upward adjustment in numbers occurred in Florida, 165,000 (0.9 percent), followed by North Carolina, 103,000 (1.1 percent), and California, 83,000 (0.2 percent). States with less population than Census had estimated include Arizona, -4.1 percent (-262,000); Georgia, -2.0 percent (-197,000); Utah, -2.0 percent (-54,000); and New York, -186,000 (-1.0 percent). These revisions help explain why construction in a state held up better or shrank more than might have been expected based on earlier population estimates. They can also provide a clue as to whether the industry will revive soon or continue to struggle. However, the near-term demand for construction in some states depends much more on the population trend since the recession started than over the course of the whole decade. Census has not announced when it will release re-estimates of the year-by-year state and local population counts.