Boston is now majority white according to the 2006 American Community Survey
People who are “Not-Hispanic, White alone” (white, in other words) make up 50.2% of Boston’s population according to data from the 2006 American Community Survey that was released today by the United States Census Bureau.
For a background on the sheer madness of the ACS and Census Bureau data for Boston over the past few years, start here and work your way back. Or just read my quick summary here:
The ACS and the Census Bureau population estimate for Boston have recorded a decreasing population for the city since 2002 and 2003, respectively. Last year the Census Bureau, under tremendous pressure from Boston’s mayor Thoms Menino, revised the population estimate for 2005 so that it showed an ever so slowly increasing population since the Census 2000. The revision was explained as due to a previous underestimation of the city’s group-quarter and immigrant populations by the Bureau. The explanation wasn’t exactly fool proof, or even particularly convincing, but it nonetheless went unchallenged.
An obvious question at the time was how the ACS would reflect the revised population going forward. Judging from the currently available 2006 ACS data, the answer seems to be “a bit.”
Before we dive into the new numbers, the Census Bureau would like to make the following clear:
Although the American Community Survey (ACS) produces population, demographic and housing unit estimates, it is the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program that produces and disseminates the official estimates of the population for the nation, states, counties, cities and towns and estimates of housing units for states and counties.
That disclaimer used to read something along the lines that the ACS surveys household populations to the exclusion of group-quarters populations like college dorms, but starting with the 2006 ACS, the ACS surveys everybody (or at least samples of both household and group-quarter populations).
So how different from “the official estimates of the population” is the ACS? Let’s take New York City, 2006, as an example:
American Community Survey: 8,214,426.
Official population estimate: 8,214,426.
A perfect match. How about that?
New York City’s numbers look pretty good when one matches 2005 and 2006 household and group-quarter populations.
So, how about Boston? Let’s just say it doesn’t look quite as good. Let’s start off with the total population estimates for Boston in 2006:
American Community Survey: 575,187.
Official population estimate: 590,763.
We’re in luck.
Let’s break it down. Boston household population in 2006 was 541,254, according to the ACS. In 2005 it was about 520,702. As I noted in a post two weeks ago, the ACS found a decrease of about 1,500 households from 2005 to 2006, yet the number of people who live in households increased by almost 21,000, we now learn.
Since the 2006 ACS has it that Boston’s total population is about 575,000, it means that the city’s group-quarter populations is virtually unchanged since 2000, even though under-estimation of college dorm and other group-quarter populations supposedly was the reason for why the Census Bureau for years thought Boston’s population was declining.
Strange stuff.
