Hub population rose, Census review finds
The US Census Bureau yesterday said it had underestimated Boston's population in 2005 and released a new tally showing that the city gained residents in the first half of the decade.
In June, the Bureau released an annual population estimate that showed Boston had lost 30,000 residents between 2000 and 2005. Mayor Thomas M. Menino challenged that figure, saying that it failed to include many immigrants, residents of public housing, and students. Yesterday, the Census Bureau acknowledged that its earlier estimate was wrong and said a new tally showed that Boston had gained about 7,500 residents during that period, increasing its population to an estimated 596,638.
Menino hailed the news as an economic and psychological boost for the city. He said the implications were "huge" because the estimate directly affects the way the federal government allocates aid and because it colors perceptions about the city's vitality.
"This was a guesstimate by somebody sitting behind a desk at the Census Bureau," a triumphant Menino said in an interview yesterday. "I knew they were wrong, and I hope now people will look at Boston in the right way: as a growing city."
The new tally comes at a crucial time for the city. After population losses between 1950 and 1980, the last two decades brought steady increases. The earlier estimate of population losses had sparked fears that growth had ended.
Marc D. Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency, said the notion that Boston was losing population had "really begun to drive the political agenda," leading to calls for lower taxes and fewer checks on development to reverse the trend.
The revised numbers could change the tone of political discourse about Boston.
"People in 2000 were holding up Boston as an example of urban renaissance, and I guess these new numbers show it is holding up," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
When the Census Bureau released its original estimate, Menino said he was unhappy that it showed a 5.1 percent decrease in population since 2000. The mayor has worked to foster growth in the city, and to project an image of strength for Boston that would attract employers and new residents. The population loss posed a difficult public relations problem for the mayor and his city, and prompted a series of what city officials called "doom and gloom" assessments of Boston's fortunes by local officials and community organizations.
"It's about federal funds, but it's also the perception," Menino said. "When this came out, the headlines said the city is losing population, people are moving out of Boston, the city is falling apart. But in actuality, people are coming to our city. They want to live here and raise their families here and they see the good opportunities here."
Unlike its person-by-person population count once every decade, the Census Bureau's annual population estimates are based largely on birth and death records, tax returns, and rough estimates of housing units built and demolished.
After the bureau's estimate for Boston was released, Menino ordered the Boston Redevelopment Authority to tabulate the number of housing units built and demolished since 2000. He said the city could more accurately measure housing that the census might have missed, such as new college dormitories and commercial buildings that were converted to housing.
BRA officials found that the Census Bureau had underestimated new housing production by more than 3,000 units, and overestimated demolitions by 1,800, said Alvaro Lima, the agency's director of research.
"Boston does lots of conversions, and they have no way of counting that," Lima said of the Census Bureau. "We built a lot of dormitories, too. But they just project from the basis they have. In Boston, we don't demolish anything, but they had demolition numbers that were three times higher than the real number."
Gregory Harper, a Census Bureau demographer, said the agency reviewed the city's data and agreed that more new housing units such as dormitories should have been factored into the estimate.
"We had a disagreement between those two methods," Harper said. "Our method was showing a lot of out-migration from the county, which we don't show with the housing unit data."
Every year, about 40 of the 19,000 municipalities whose population the Census Bureau estimates file appeals and the agency almost always agrees to revise its tally, Harper said. This year, it revised its estimate for about two dozen localities, including New York City (up 70,000), St. Louis (up 8,000), and Washington (up 32,000).
