Decatur 2010 Census Map! (Courtesy of the NY Times)
Decatur Metro | March 25, 2011 | 1:25 pm
Over on Fresh Loaf, Thomas Wheatley rightly points out that the brand-new census maps put up on the New York Times website are a total time-suck.
Zoom into Decatur’s city limits and check out how the city’s population has changed in the past 10 years. From a look at changes in the city’stotal population #s (map above), to racial make-up, to density, to vacant housing, the map tells a not-so-surprising story about Decatur over the past 10 years.
As you can see from all the blue in the map above, populations grew in each of Decatur’s four census tracks except for what can loosely be described as the southeast Winnona Park tract. The largest growth (+10% to 20%) was seen up in the northeast tract.
The largest change in racial make-up, not surprisingly, was seen in the southeast Oakhurst tract, with the white population more than doubling since 2000 (+113%) and the black population dropping 47%.
And when it comes to vacant housing, only the southwest Oakhurst tract had fewer vacant properties than it did in 2000.
Anyway, enough from me! Check it out and let us know what else you find.
The other stats on the Census site for Decatur are amazing:
Ale: +78%
Lager: -14%
Grass-fed beef: +166%
Grain-fed beef: -47%
Bikram Yoga: +33%
Pranakriya Yoga: -65%
Amazing!
Qigong +1%
Zombies +435%
Restaurants with the word “farm” in their name: +300%
Decatur themed blogs +500%
Thomas Sowell had a column recently (March 16) on why blacks have left San Fransisco. Not sure how it helps to explain the exodus from Decatur but it is interesting reading.
I read the Sowell essay and it is interesting reading, however, he does not make a good case nor present any proof of his assertions, just some random accusations and anecdotes. He repeatedly claims environmental zealots drove up housing prices, causing blacks to leave San Francisco, but never actually explains how environmentalists did that. He also blames minimum wage laws and unions for higher housing prices with no real explanation as to what the connection between these are.
Who knew? I actually thought higher home prices were caused by a gianormous housing bubble fueled by wild speculation in the stock market and lax lending practices. San Francisco, being a highly desirable limited area bound on three sides by water, probably had something to do with sky-rocketing real estate prices too.
Since I never think in terms of census tracts, I never realized how much the original elementary schools reflected the four basic census tracts of the City of Decatur:
225: Westchester
226: Glennwood and Clairemont (almost 225)
227: Oakhurst, Fifth Avenue, and College Heights (almost 228)
228: Winnona Park
And the high school is as close to the intersection of all 4 census tracts as you can get without sitting right on the tracks. Since I think a lot of the elementary schools were built pre-white flight from the southwest side of Decatur, you can see the geographic logic. Unfortunately, white flight meant that the geographic distribution of schools resulted in functional segregation.
Now what we have is, in order of population size, not census tract number:
226, 5,795 persons, fastest growing: Glennwood, Clairemont
225, 5,361 persons, third fastest growing: No elementary, DHS
227, 4,433 persons, second fastest growing: Oakhurst, College Heights, Fifth Avenue, RMS
228, 3,648 persons, declining: Winnona Park
This does not reflect school age populations. Nonetheless, I did not realize that 226 had the largest and fastest growing population of the City of Decatur.
The northeast tract is the one that includes downtown, which added somewhere around 500 units in the past decade. Since many (most?) of these units have just one or two occupants, I’d venture they probably account for almost all of the roughly 700 new residents in the 226 tract.
And I think the Artisan and 335 W Ponce probably account for the 175ish new residents in tract 225.
Agree but even if you subtracted out those new downtown residents, 226 and 225 are still the largest census tracts. Given their size and that 227 will soon have two elementary schools, plus the ECLC plus the middle school, it seems appropriate that 226 will soon have two elementary schools. It seems inappropriate than 225 has none. Of note, 227 has the fastest growing black population and 227 has the fastest declining. My guess is that, in 10 years, the sociodemographic composition of Decatur will be pretty even across Decatur except, maybe, in subsidized housing but even that may be changing with the renovations. There’s positive and negative to this change. In terms of segregated schools, there will be little risk of that. In terms of the achievement gap, we may have solved that by moving it out of Decatur.