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By MORTON J. MARCUS
INDIANAPOLIS - Last week I had the honor of addressing the annual conference of Professional Swan Callers International – Indiana Chapter (PSCI-In) meeting at Lake Monroe. Naturally, they had the same concerns as other Hoosiers: what should be the priorities of President-elect Obama and Governor-re-elect Daniels?
I quickly addressed the obvious: the economy, taxes and spending, education, health insurance, health care, the environment, energy, transportation, public safety, cultural chauvinism and college football playoffs. Then I got to the leading neglected task for our new president and our returning governor: the 2010 Census.
Every 10 years we count ourselves. The census is the leading source of information about us, an essential resource for successful businesses, efficient governments, and responsible not-for-profit organizations. But the Congress, as ever, has short-changed the Census Bureau and the bureau, as ever, has squandered part of the money they were allocated. To the best of my knowledge, most Indiana governments have not allocated funds nor addressed the issues involved in conducting a successful census.
The census is the basis of representative democracy. If each voter is to have an equal say in government, the congressional and legislative districts must be constructed according to the counts determined by the census as taken each 10 years.
Between those benchmark years, the Census Bureau does release population estimates that have many uses. For example, we can identify 44 of our 92 counties that gained more than one percent in population from 2000 to 2007 and 28 counties that lost at least one percent of their people. That left 20 counties with changes between plus and minus one percent.
Of 567 Indiana cities and towns, 29% grew by more than one percent and twice that amount (58%) declined by more than one percent. The remaining 13% gained or lost by less than one percent. Altogether, cities and towns grew by 2.7% while the state’s growth rate was 4.2%. Indiana’s unincorporated areas grew at 6.9%, the same rate as the nation as a whole.
Where cities and towns represented 65.5% of the state’s population in 2000, they captured only 42.7% of the state’s growth. In terms of persons to be served, cities and towns added 108,000 residents while the unincorporated areas of our counties added 145,000 citizens, a difference 37,000.
Are the costs of adding population inside our cities and towns the same as adding them in unincorporated areas? If we could, would we change this pattern of growth?
Each county had a different experience of population change in those seven years. In 2000, 82.5% of Allen County’s residents lived in cities and towns but only 1.6% of the county’s population growth was realized by those incorporated areas. The unincorporated areas of the county grew by 16,200 more persons than the cities and towns gained. Similar dramatic imbalances existed in Vanderburgh (12,200) and Elkhart (8,800) counties.
In all, 71 counties added more residents to their unincorporated areas than to their cities and towns. The remaining 21 Indiana counties saw the opposite: more people choosing cities and towns than the unincorporated areas. This pattern of growth was most evident in Hamilton and Hendricks counties.
Where people choose to live within a county is determined by many factors including water, the fertility of the land, taxes, transportation, schools and environmental amenities. Where people are allowed to live has been unquestioned during most of our history. But are the times a’changin’? Will energy costs become a significant incentive for living within cities and towns?
Without good data, public and private decisions will be hampered in the next decade.
Mr. Marcus is an independent economist, speaker, and writer formerly with IU’s Kelley School of Business. Contact him for speaking engagements at mortonjmarcus@yahoo.com
Tags: Barack Obama, Mitch Daniels, Morton J. Marcus
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This entry was written by and posted on December 2, 2008 at 12:12 pm and filed under Morton Marcus Column. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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