Latest Census Estimates and Met Council Projections

[acs]

At the very least, by the time the next census and redistricting rolls around, the core cities won't lose any more seats in the legislature, which they haven't been able to say for probably 60 years. Whether or not Mpls and/or St. Paul could gain a seat back remains to be seen.

It's almost assured that the losses will come from outstate MN, especially the deeply rural areas.

[RailBaronYarr]

Kinda hard to see how Minneapolis won't exceed the October 2014 forecasts the Met Council put out there. We're only 13k away from the 2020 number (424,700) with 6 years of growth to go. I wonder how many units are permitted/under construction? There are 3,500 units just in downtown/St Anthony.

[min-chi-cbus]

There's a whole bunch of units proposed, approved, and under construction in Minneapolis.....it's more of a question of whether or not they'll all be built AND occupied.

I don't know if I'm looking into this too deeply, but I noticed that the 2014 data is only through April 1, meaning it's literally been 1/3 of the decade so far, and not 4 years, or 2/5 of the decade, which is how I bet most people are running their numbers. On the flip side, is the 2010 metric using Jan 1, 2010; April 1, 2010, or Dec 31, 2010 data? It makes a fairly big difference. For example, 28,000 people added to Minneapolis in 4 years brings it to a 70,000 addition over 10 years, but if Mpls grew by 28,000 over 3.3 years, then you could extrapolate decennial growth at 85,000 people instead. Same with the metro population growth: 128,000 people added in 4 years is 32,000 people per year or 11% per decade, on average, but 128,000 people added in 3.3 years is more like 42,500 people per year, which is almost 15% per decade. Or worse, if it's grown 128,000 people in 4.5 years, then the decennial rate is less than 10%, which is just sad.

If that's all true, that's fairly impressive growth, and much stronger than I was led to believe based on previous population estimates and discussions. Also, it sounds like growth was somewhat stymied in 2010, 2011 and 2012, but started really picking up in 2013. The question is, which year is most representative of the state of the metro in the 2010's? I'm hoping it's more like 2013 than 2010.

*EDIT* It sounds like the Census is always pegged to April 1, meaning 4 years, not 3.3 or 4.5. Kinda a bummer for me, but we'll see what, if anything, changes moving forward.

[HiawathaGuy]

New 2014 estimates are up. Minneapolis population at 411,286.

http://www.metrocouncil.org/METC/files/ ... 6fbf1c.pdf

At the average growth rate since 2010, Minneapolis would hit 500k by the middle of 2026. I'm not claiming the growth will continue or that 500k is a laudable goal, just saying.

It's great to see both Minneapolis and St. Paul increasing so well! St. Paul's population grew by 5.1 percent over the four years to 299,641, while Minneapolis' grew by 7.5 percent to 411,286.

FWIW, the metro area population (as defined by the US Census, shown below), is now: 3,467,406.



I used the Census quickfacts website: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/m ... a_map.html and this website: http://proximityone.com/metros/2013/cbsa33460.htm to tally those up.

[twincitizen]

It is entirely possible that the yearly estimates and decennial projections are done with different methodologies.
The annual stuff is probably just a more complex version of: 2010 census + (occupied units added * average hh size).

I'll also note that the future projections have been revised downward not once but twice in recent years. I'd suspect that some inner burbs with booming multi-family construction like Edina & SLP will exceed their projections as well.

Following up on my posts from last year and earlier, numbers have been revised down even lower in these newly updated 2040 estimates:

Mpls: 449,400
St Paul: 334,100
Bloomington: 91,800
Edina: 50,800
St Louis Park: 51,300

Added context: Mpls numbers for 2020 and 2030 are 419,600 and 432,400, respectively. Seems pretty realistic/reasonable to me. We might be somewhere in the vicinity of 410,000 at some point this year, depending on how many of these new units get filled. Census will be conducted 5 years from today (minus two weeks). That would mean growth of about 2,500 residents per year in years 2016-2020. Still a pretty rapid clip, even if slower than 2010-2015 boom.

[mattaudio]

Ok, it's just nuts that our MSA...
-Touches St. Peter (across the MN River)
-Includes a tiny sliver of Mankato (northern tip of airport property)
-Includes Maiden Rock, WI but not Red Wing, MN a half hour closer
-Includes part of St. Cloud
-Includes half of Lake Mille Lacs

[acs]

Ok, I've thrown in last years estimates and added columns for the YOY total growth, YOY growth rate, and 4 year growth rate. What's the best way to post an excel spreadsheet?

[Anondson]

Any of you spreadsheet jockeys care to whip up a list according to percentage increase? Just curious.

[FranklinAveFixation]

^Time to expand Met Council's turf!

[HiawathaGuy]

Any of you spreadsheet jockeys care to whip up a list according to percentage increase? Just curious.

The Pioneer Press article has a good spreadsheet of the metro counties:
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... since-2010

[twincitizen]

I don't care what the US Census Bureau says, the "metro area" to me is always the 7-county area. Sure it cuts out some areas that are obviously part of the Twin Cities metro, like Albertville-St. Michael-Otsego-Elk River, but it also includes a whole bunch of farmland in outlying Carver and Dakota Counties that are very much not part of the metro area in form or function. So there's sort of a tradeoff there, but the 7-county area is still about as good a definition as you can get. The rest are all way, way too broad. If there was a definition of the metro that included the 7-county area plus the mostly contiguous suburbanized areas of Wright & Sherburne Counties, I'd go for that.

EDIT / Part 2:

7-county area just barely missed 3 million... 2,977,455. Ought to be right around or just over 3 mil next year.
That round number makes it really easy to run some quick percentages if you're wondering how large a share of the metro a particular city or county makes up.
St. Paul is about 10% of the metro. Mpls-StP together are still under 25% of the metro (yikes...)

[twincitizen]

For some reason I believed (and posted previously) that Met Council projections were as of July 1 each year, rather than April 1 like the decennial Census. Obviously keeping it on April 1 makes way more sense, for consistency's sake.

Can anyone find hard evidence that Met Council's estimates are indeed taken on April 1 of each year?

Also, I'll just remind everyone that the numbers released today are
A. Preliminary, subject to review by each city/county. Final #s come out in July I believe.
B. 2014 estimates, meaning that the numbers are already one year old. Fast growing cities can probably be extrapolated if you're dying to make a guess what the population is right now in this very moment.

EDIT: Here's the methodology for the annual estimates: http://www.metrocouncil.org/METC/files/ ... 8c97df.pdf

[acs]

Alright here you guys go. Sorry it took a while.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[min-chi-cbus]

I'm SHOCKED that the 2013-14 period was below average growth (26.6K increase), vs. the 2010-13 average rates (33.8K increase, on avg.)! I would have expected 2013-14 to show much higher growth, relative to the dull 2010-11 post-recession periods. Is there any chance that 2013-14 does not include 12 months (but less)??

[twincitizen]

It's true that multi-family construction didn't really get going until 2012-13 (very few projects were under construction when UrbanMSP started in June 2012). However, looking across the 7-county region (the numbers you posted) you have to think about the thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes that were available throughout 2010-today. There was a ton of existing housing stock sitting unoccupied at the tail end of the recession in 2010.

If you look at Minneapolis specifically, the 2013-14 growth of 10,348 smokes the 2010-13 annual average of 6,120. Those numbers support what you were expecting - tepid growth post recession and much more rapid growth in the last year or two. But yeah, region-wide I would guess that the multifamily explosion still pales in comparison to the number of existing units that have been occupied (driving both single-fam and multi-fam vacancy rates to all-time lows). Even in Minneapolis, I'm sure that a significant share of our recent population growth has been accommodated by driving down vacancy rates at existing apartments. For example, if there are 100,000 existing multi-family units in Minneapolis and you drive down the vacancy rate from 6% to 2%, that's 4,000 units occupied.

[twincitizen]

MPR with a story, which apparently uses US Census Bureau estimates (and July 1, 2014, not April 1...apparently): http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/05/21/census-data

So the Census Bureau and Met Council are each doing independent annual estimates? Down to the City level? Why?

[Anondson]

MPR with a story, which apparently uses US Census Bureau estimates (and July 1, 2014, not April 1...apparently): http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/05/21/census-data

So the Census Bureau and Met Council are each doing independent annual estimates? Down to the City level? Why?

Wonder who has the history of greater accuracy for twin cities growth estimates. Gut feeling, the Met Council.

[MNdible]

I suppose they're already doing modeling to track growth, so it doesn't take much to have the spreadsheets spit out a report once a year.

[twincitizen]

For the future projections, looking out 20, 30 years, I believe someone here said Met Council had the better track record, though both definitely missed on 2010 outlooks - as Mpls stagnated and St. Paul shrank.

As for the annual estimates, in this particular instance it appears the Census is a little more conservative. That MPR story has a lower numbers for Mpls (407,207) & StP (297,640) than Met Council did.

MPR has an interactive map which you can click around to see each City's estimate.
Here's a .CSV file you can download with each year's census estimate if you really want to geek out: http://www.census.gov/popest/data/citie ... 014_27.csv

On a ranking of the largest cities in the country, Bloomington just toppled Duluth in 2013, but also apparently lost 83 people 2013-14:

Code: Select all

370 Bloomington city, Minnesota 82,893 82,893 83,036 83,917 86,060 86,397 86,314 371 Duluth city, Minnesota 86,265 86,266 86,226 86,270 86,255 86,221 86,238

Code: Select all

421 Brooklyn Park city, Minnesota 75,781 75,784 75,970 76,889 77,769 78,442 78,728 452 Plymouth city, Minnesota 70,576 70,561 70,684 71,658 72,928 74,023 75,057 519 Maple Grove city, Minnesota 61,567 61,569 61,799 63,200 64,431 65,463 66,945 523 Woodbury city, Minnesota 61,961 61,965 62,239 63,523 64,512 65,665 66,807 529 St. Cloud city, Minnesota 65,842 65,946 65,955 65,915 65,963 66,075 66,389 531 Eagan city, Minnesota 64,206 64,205 64,258 64,526 64,853 65,485 66,084 560 Eden Prairie city, Minnesota 60,797 60,751 60,856 61,610 62,220 62,596 63,228 574 Coon Rapids city, Minnesota 61,476 61,476 61,541 61,506 61,879 62,027 62,112 577 Burnsville city, Minnesota 60,306 60,307 60,408 60,655 61,128 61,482 61,630 584 Blaine city, Minnesota 57,186 57,177 57,396 58,128 59,353 60,386 61,190

The first 3 columns of pop numbers are all 2010 (Census, Base, 7/1/2010 est.) Then it's 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.

[twincitizen]

And Minneapolis has some interesting company:

Code: Select all

44 Miami, Florida 399,457 399,508 401,136 412,438 416,917 421,363 430,332 45 Oakland, Calif 390,724 390,905 391,716 396,649 401,867 407,667 413,775 46 MINNEAPOLIS 382,578 382,599 383,062 388,253 392,966 400,647 407,207 47 Tulsa, Oklahoma 391,906 391,922 392,422 392,751 394,510 398,404 399,682 48 Cleveland, Ohio 396,815 396,697 395,994 392,505 391,406 391,156 389,521

With Oakland and especially Miami growing rapidly, it seems we offer no credible threat to overtake them anytime soon. Even at our current blistering growth rate we'll have a hard time keeping up. It doesn't look like either Tulsa or Cleveland are threatening us either, so we're pretty safely at #46 through at least the 2020 Census. 49, 50, and 51 are Wichita, New Orleans, and Arlington TX. It drops off quite a bit after that.

St. Paul has some interesting company too:

Code: Select all

64 Anchorage, Alaska 291,826 291,826 293,337 296,282 298,633 301,629 301,010 65 Cincinnati, Ohio 296,943 296,950 296,918 296,114 296,801 297,618 298,165 66 SAINT PAUL 285,068 285,068 285,468 288,884 291,244 295,431 297,640 67 Greensboro, NC 269,666 268,877 269,521 272,521 276,372 279,782 282,586 68 Toledo city, Ohio 287,208 287,206 287,028 285,549 283,450 282,633 281,031

If the local economy stays hot and development along the Green Line unfolds as it should, St. Paul could move up anywhere from 2-4 spots by 2020. (I am not confident anyone will be living at the Ford site by April 1, 2020, so not even considering that)

EDIT: Here's your Census Factfinder link for incorporated places over 50k population, ranked: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tabl ... l?src=bkmk