Several Midwestern cities are going to be counted again like it's 2020
Four years after the last census, nearly a dozen small communities in the Midwest will be counted again in hopes of a new grocery store or more government funding for road construction, fire stations and parks.
Eleven small towns in Illinois and Iowa are the only municipalities so far to have signed agreements with the US Census Bureau for a second count of their residents in 2024, the first year the special counts can be conducted, in a repeat of what happened happened during the Second World War. 2020 Census.
With one exception, city officials don't think the numbers from the original count were inaccurate. It's just that their population has grown so quickly in three years that officials think they're leaving state funding for roads and other items on the table by not adding the extra growth to their population totals. Some also believe that new results from a second census will open their communities to new businesses because they show they have crossed a population threshold.
“We expect significant population growth as a result of the special census, especially considering we had a record year for building permits,” said Marketa Oliver, city manager for Bondurant, Iowa, a city of more than 8,700 residents as of mid-2022. last year are available, which is an increase of 18% from the 2020 count.
Officials in Norwalk, Iowa, hope the second count shows the city has surpassed 15,000 residents, as that is the threshold typically used as a rule of thumb in commercial real estate for when a community can support a business like a grocery store.
“Once a city hits 15,000, the market opens up tremendously,” said Luke Nelson, Norwalk city manager.
Unlike the 2020 census, the second counts will not be used to redraw political districts or determine how many congressional seats each state gets. Instead, they will be used to determine how much the communities will receive in state funding, which is often calculated based on population size. Communities that have suffered population losses over the past three years have nothing to worry about; their declining numbers won't catch up with them until after the 2030 census.
Local, state and tribal governments in the US have until May 2027 to request a special census from the Census Bureau. While the 2020 population count bill was footed by the federal government, local municipalities must foot the bill for their special counts. The costs are not cheap, ranging from just over $370,000 to almost $500,000 for the communities.
Some communities have already moved forward with their own do-it-yourself recounts, unwilling to pay the price tag for a special census organized by the bureau. Others have challenged their numbers with the Census Bureau and won small victories.
The Iowa cities paying for a second census by the Census Bureau in 2024 — Altoona, Bondurant, Grimes, Johnston, Norwalk, Pleasant Hill and Waukee — are fast-growing suburbs of Des Moines. The reason special counts are so popular in Iowa is because the state uses the once-in-a-decade count as the official population density when it comes to funding based on population size, said Gary Krob, coordinator of the State Data Center from the State Library. of Iowa.
Other inter-census states use annual population estimates to calculate how much funding local governments should receive each year.
“That means the 2020 census is currently the official count for every city and county in Iowa,” Krob said. “The only way to adjust your population count between now and 2030 is to conduct a special census at the Census Bureau and then have this new count certified by the Iowa Secretary of State.”
The geography of Illinois cities and their reasons for seeking a second count — McDonough, Pingree Grove, Urbana and Warrenville — are slightly more spread out than in Iowa.
Officials in Warrenville, a Chicago suburb with more than 13,500 residents in 2020, believe they can get an additional $1.2 million annually in federal and state funding, based on the calculation that they have added nearly 1,000 new residents from several new housing developments.
The village of Pingree Grove, just outside Chicago, has experienced rapid growth, doubling from more than 4,500 residents in 2010 to more than 10,300 residents in 2020. Village officials believe there will be 12,300 residents by 2024, so a special census is needed to add more residents to generate. share of state revenues, “instead of waiting another six years for the 2030 census,” said Laura Ortega, the village secretary.
University of Illinois students make up about half of the population of the college town of Urbana, and city officials say the 2020 census missed many of them.
During the 2020 census, places with large numbers of students emptied as campuses halted in-person classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Urbana's projected modest population growth for the 2020 census amounted to a 7% decline from 2010 residents, with the largest declines in student neighborhoods near campus, Mayor Diane Marlin said in an email .
The countless students cost the city at least $500,000 to $750,000 annually in missing state and federal funding, the mayor said. The 2024 count in Urbana will be limited to the neighborhoods seeing the largest declines.
“If we recapture our population through a more accurate count, we recapture lost revenue,” Marlin said.
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