Friday, July 11, 2008

Bloomberg's fuzzy math

New York City grew by 23,960 people in the 12 months ending July 2007 for a population of 8.27 million, according to the yearly estimates from the U.S. Census.

Census Data: NYC Grows, Upstate Cities Shrink

Third grade was a long time ago, so please check my work...

2030 - 2007 = 23 years
23 years x 23,960 people = 551,080 increase in population by 2030.
8,270,000 + 551,080 = 8,821,080 total population in the year 2030.

Previously: 9 million people by 2030, eh?

...the city released a report projecting that its population would grow by more than 1 million by 2030, bringing the city's total population to 9.1 million...

9,100,000 - 8,821,080 means that our mayor is overinflating projected population increase by 278,920. Why?

Mr. Bloomberg routinely cites the figures as justification for various large projects...

Oh, okay.

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mayor Midget is drunk on his own ego!

But unlike the diminutive master conquerer Napoleon,
NYC's pint-sized primitive will be remembered for nothing but twisting
facts and figures to jive with his own personal opinions and delusions of grandeur!

Anonymous said...

hey crappy:

go give bloomie a math lesson

Truman Harris said...

And here I thought Bloomie was from Boston. Sounds like he is a product of NYC public schools.

Anonymous said...

What qualifications does any politician have to make him an expert in planning the living and business accommodations for any size population?

Oh. I just learned that no particular qualifications are required at all. All any politician needs to do to qualify is take cash from developers and real estate interests.

And, once payment is accepted, the taxpaying citizens - the ones who pick up the tab, and then have to pick up the pieces, have no say whatsoever in that the politician and developers do.

Anonymous said...

Hey crappy:
FYI
That kind of math isn't done in the third grade - too difficult.
It's more like fifth grade work.

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg originally worked for Goldman Sachs
as one of their partners.

One day Sachs decided that they didn't want his "partnership" any longer so they demoted him down to their technical/communications division. He really got sacked by Sachs.

Then our pint-sized little prick got pissed off and took his financial reporting stuff (stolen? Who knows.) over to their arch enemy Merrill Lynch.

Once a guy has been "dumped" (a short guy to boot) he has a continuing inferiority complex for life.

That's why he's such a micro managing control freaking despot!

Anonymous said...

I think that as communities are boken up with more and more transients taking a less and less interest in resisting development (Elmhurst 30 years ago, Astoria, today) they think the pace of development will pick up.

Anonymous said...

Not only are his figures fuzzy, but he is ignoring past trends in population growth in NYC. According to the US Census Bureau, New York had a population of 7, 894,862 in 1970. By the time of the 1980 census (widely considered midway point of a 20 year economic decline) it was tallied at 7, 071,639 a loss of just over 800, 000 in population.

If you look at the figures from 1900 which was one year after the incorporation of Greater New York, through 1930, you will see that there is an average growth rate of
116,141 persons per annum for the recorded 30 years of census. Those years were considered the high water mark of immigration. Consider then, the years from 1940 through 1990 and the per annum growth diminishes to 6535 per annum.

If you take the 2007 estimate of 8,270,000 and the current growth rate of 6535 persons per annum, the figure over 23 years is more like 8,420,305 by 2030. I am not a statistician, and my numbers may be flawed, but I think I am much closer to the mark than the mayor. My only conclusion is that there is a hidden agenda to all this, and when it is revealed it’s not going to be pretty.

Anonymous said...

you guys are great at elementary math, imagine banks calculated your interest that way. Your ignoring the current flight of long islanders into the city, the fact that life spans have increased dramatically since the first half of the 20th century, the ovr developement allows for more people to come and stay therefore producing more offspring, it may not increase to 9 million but calculating the number like a 3rd grader is probably why you are not in a real position to make change. His over inflation is also calculated into federal aid packages, representation in congress etc.. the pluses to over inflating population growth far outweigh the minuses, you bitch up a lack of infrastructure for the developement this is a way to get the infrastructure in place.

Anonymous said...

The census had us at 8 million in 2000. 2007 is 8.27. If we gain 250k every 7 years that's 1 million by 2030.

Anonymous said...

The census had us at 8 million in 2000. 2007 is 8.27. If we gain 250k every 7 years that's 1 million by 2030.


you are not helping, the point of this blog is to bitch and moan, not make sense. most of the people on here will be in one of our over developed-green spaced cemetaries by 2030, so let them die knowing they made no difference, but got to use their computers to bitch about everything

Truman Harris said...

The answer is because the U.S. Census numbers don't count all the illegal immigrants and those living in illegal apartments. Bloomie's figures do because he wants them to keep coming.

Anonymous said...

Common sense says that if the population grows X% then the following year it would slightly increase to X.2% and X.4% the following year and so on. It is no mystery that we need more housing and better infrastructure, so cut Bloomy a break and let him give whatever stats he needs to in order to get things done. Otherwise we are all screwed

Ridgewoodian said...

TRUMAN HARRIS:…the U.S. Census numbers don't count all the illegal immigrants and those living in illegal apartments.

Actually, that’s not true. Then Census Bureau is required to make an ACTUAL ENUMERATION of ALL persons in the country. This because of the requirements of the 14th Amendment:

“Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.” (Emphasis added.)

In 1989 the House of Representatives defeated a measure that would have excluded illegal aliens from the count in 1990. You can read about that HERE. (I don’t know if there was a similar debate leading up to 2000.)

The Census Bureau is apparently spending money to MORE ACCURATLY count the illegals in the run-up to 2010.

I don’t know how far this has gotten, probably not very far, but a U.S. Representative from Michigan proposed a Constitutional amendment to apportion representatives among the states based on the number of citizens there, not the whole number of persons. You can listen to a story about that on NPR HERE.

Ridgewoodian said...

Crappy—

Even if your assumptions and third grade math are right in every detail – and though I’m not a demographer or a trained statistician I’m dubious that they are – in a city this size 278,920 is not really all that many people. (Let’s remember, between 1970 and 1980 we lost 823,223 people. If they had all moved to one spot and not reproduced or died today that spot would be the 12th largest city in the United States, just between Detroit and Jacksonville, and quite a bit larger than such pissant towns as Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. With that disastrous loss New York was STILL the largest city in the country by several million people.) It isn’t nothing but it’s pretty close. The difference between the city’s estimate of 9.1 million inhabitants by 2030 and your guesstimate of 8.8 million is about 3%. To illustrate how negligible a difference that is, consider this: the capacity per car on the new R160s – which will probably be in service through 2030 and beyond – is about 240, sitting and standing. If 3% less than capacity ride that’s still 233 people crushed in there.

Essentially, 8.8 and 9.1 are the same. And if we don't hit 9.1 by 2030 by your own model we’ll still get there by 2043 – 35 years from now instead of 23, a brief respite. It behooves us to plan for to receive these people.

Anonymous said...

ever notice that once intelligent comments are posted and the bitches are asked to use common sense, they stop posting?

Anonymous said...

King baggy pants and sh*thead Just called Salt Lake City people IDAHO !!!

.....Just on Fox 5 at 10
Perhaps he and Charleze Theron can get together and teach !

Anonymous said...

go give bloomie a math lesson.

King Bloommie needs geography lesson as well !

"Salt Lake City Idaho" ?
:) :) :)

Truman Harris said...

"in a city this size 278,920 is not really all that many people."

Actually, it's the size of several Queens neighborhoods. Maspeth or Middle Village alone is 40,000 people.

As for the prediction, we are losing jobs, and when you hemorrhage jobs, you hemorrhage people. What good are thousands more luxury condos if there won't be jobs here for those who would buy them? Even the illegals are moving back to Mexico. And if there's a good way to estimate the number of people here who have no paper trail, then I'd like to see how the Feds do it.

Anonymous said...

Population increases are never a given. Nor should they be encouraged if you don't have infrastructure in place FIRST to take care of the increased number of people. And we all know this mayor has no desire to fix the broken bike before telling more people to hop on.

Anonymous said...

Population of NYC in 2030: Zero.

We'll be underwater.

Anonymous said...

I hear a lot from the mayor about how housing units are needed to accommodate the increasing population, but not much else about what will be needed for them. What about schools, hospitals, electricity?

Anonymous said...

People are leaving this city in droves because it's become unaffordable. The country's economy is going down the tubes, and the mayor says he predicted it. So how can he also predict a population increase when there are no jobs being created and the people who are here now can't afford to stay?

Anonymous said...

By 2030 the city will be nothing but yuppies and their illegal servants.

Anonymous said...

nobody gets it he says 1 million more because he has to push affordable & housing projects for developers !! we need more housing and my friends need more $$$$ look at willets point he always says well have 1 miilion more people by 2030 so we need the 5500 housing units. follow the $$$ and you will find a developer licking bloomys ass

Anonymous said...

I CANT WAIT TO GET OUT OF THIS CITY AND I WANT OUT BEFOR JEWBURG TAKES MY HOUSE

Ridgewoodian said...

ANONYMOUS: I CANT WAIT TO GET OUT OF THIS CITY AND I WANT OUT BEFOR JEWBURG TAKES MY HOUSE

Wanting out is one thing. Maybe you have your reasons; I won't comment on or argue with them. Jew-baiting, though, that's another thing entirely. Didn't you mother raise you right? Please, you can't leave soon enough. You're not worthy of this great city. Get gone and good riddance.

Anonymous said...

“I CANT WAIT TO GET OUT OF THIS CITY AND I WANT OUT BEFOR JEWBURG TAKES MY HOUSE”
Is this the best you have to offer to the discussion. Try and stick to the facts as much as possible stop the bigotry. Fight the misuse of eminent domain yes , but this diminishes your argument.

I tried to present the figures as best I could and as far as I can see the facts do not support the mayors conclusion about 2030 population figures.

“Your ignoring the current flight of long islanders into the city…” Oh really? Where do you get your information? This simply has not happened. According to the US Census for Nassau County population growth reached a peak in the 1970 census and began to drop for the years 1980 thru1990. In 2000 it showed some growth and leveling thru 2006. Much the same for Suffolk County. The main issue remains high property taxes.

“His over inflation is also calculated into federal aid packages, representation in congress etc.. the pluses to over inflating population growth far outweigh the minuses, you bitch up a lack of infrastructure for the development this is a way to get the infrastructure in place.”

If that were the case we would have one of the finest infrastructures in the world, which we do not. As a young girl I watched as they built the Throgs Neck and Verrazano Bridges, the Long Island Expressway and Meadowbrook Parkways as well as many new schools. I also remember the acquisition and linking of the old Long Island RR rockaway division to the A line. The Battery Tunnel was also completed in my lifetime. Most of these transportation projects were planned and developed during the 1940’s and 50’s by Robert Moses. Fast forward through the next 45 years and what do you have? One new tunnel to Manhattan via 63 street which took over 30 years to complete. And what else? Still no second avenue subway. Mass transit, sewage treatment plants, new power plants, not even close to keeping pace. Development needs to be controlled so that improvements to the infrastructure can keep pace. It’s called planned development. Where have the funds gone? Do you think you are being properly represented?
“The census had us at 8 million in 2000. 2007 is 8.27. If we gain 250k every 7 years that's 1 million by 2030.”
“If” The truth is that past population trends don’t support the premise. Even at the peak of immigration in 1910 we did not have those kind of trends. My figures were supported by the previous 90 years and yours considered the past 7. Ours is a highly mobile society and people move on, populations ebb and flow, and demographics change.
You cannot just build it and hope that it will be supported at some future date. The mayor and his successors will have to prove that they are serious and begin to build the educational facilities and supporting infrastructure that accompany growth. Or they will not come.

Anonymous said...

"Young people are starting families later than earlier generations did, and having fewer children. The Boomers themselves are becoming empty-nesters, and many have voiced a preference for urban living. By 2025, the U.S. will contain about as many single-person households as families with children."

This doesn't jibe with the population boom predicted by Bloomberg. Even immigrants are cutting back on the number of kids they have.

Anonymous said...

"Ah, it's that phantom creation "Ridgewoodian"and his obtusely lengthy (yawn) comments again (two in a row).

Doesn't he get tired of posting for pay at 50 cents a word?

The CAU must have hired
themselves a second rate PR guy specifically to scope "Queens Crap".

(Let's count how many words he uses in his next "saga").

Anonymous said...

My apologies to the poster above, my post was a little long winded while trying to make a point. As for the 50 cent words I’ll use 10 cent words instead if you lexicologically challenged (oops). I respect Ridgewoodian because he takes the time to backup his argument with facts, even though we disagree on many issues. If you took the time to read the full post you probably would have noted that we are not in agreement. You are the best argument against getting news from the TV. You’ll let others do your thinking, you rather than doing the real work which requires reading and research.
How’s that? Just over 100 words.

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Ridgewoodian said...

ANONYMOUS: "Ah, it's that phantom creation "Ridgewoodian"and his obtusely lengthy (yawn) comments again (two in a row). Doesn't he get tired of posting for pay at 50 cents a word? The CAU must have hired themselves a second rate PR guy specifically to scope "Queens Crap".

Wrong again. Or maybe wrong for the first time; since, unlike CJ and unlike myself (who post using consistent handles), you hide behind a veil of anonymity I can’t tell if you’re the same idiot know-nothing who’s been accusing me of being on someone’s payroll (that someone seems to change daily) or if you’re a new idiot. On the off chance that you are new: I didn’t even vote for the Mayor (although it was a close call the second time around). I’m certainly not getting paid $.50 a word by him and if I were you can be sure my posts would be much, MUCH longer.

ANONYMOUS: (Let's count how many words he uses in his next "saga").

A “saga” is an Icelandic literary form or a work having the real or supposed characteristics of Icelandic sagas. You’re dumb, yes, that’s clear, and blazingly ignorant, but can you really not tell the difference between English and Icelandic?

Ridgewoodian said...

CJ: I respect Ridgewoodian because he takes the time to backup his argument with facts, even though we disagree on many issues.

Many thanks.

Here are some things I think we agree on: That Anonymous Jew-Baiter has nothing useful to say. That Anonymous Lexicologically Challenged has no idea what he’s talking about. Also, that the lack of infrastructural improvement since the days of Robert Moses is scandalous. (Of course, it should be noted that Moses had nothing to do with the A to the Rockaways, and only built the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel when FDR, as President, flatly refused to allow him to build the huge bridge he really wanted to build – one of the few times he didn’t get his way. If you haven’t already, treat yourself to The Power Broker. It’s long, yes – probably 1000-2000 times longer than Anonymous Lexicologically Challenged would be capable of reading – but it’s beautifully written and, of course, the subject matter is fascinating. Moses got things done, yes, but at a cost. There will never be anyone like him and, on balance, that’s probably a good thing.)

As to our disagreement: I’m not sure what numbers you’re using or where you got them but here are the official census figures going back all the way to the beginning:

Census.........Pop...........%±
1790..........33,131..........—
1800..........60,515........82.7%
1810..........96,373........59.3%
1820.........123,706........28.4%
1830.........202,589........63.8%
1840.........312,710........54.4%
1850.........515,547........64.9%
1860.........813,669........57.8%
1870.........942,292........15.8%
1880.......1,206,299........28.0%
1890.......1,515,301........25.6%
1900.......3,437,202.......126.8%
1910.......4,766,883........38.7%
1920.......5,620,048........17.9%
1930.......6,930,446........23.3%
1940.......7,454,995.........7.6%
1950.......7,891,957.........5.9%
1960.......7,781,984........−1.4%
1970.......7,894,862.........1.5%
1980.......7,071,639.......−10.4%
1990.......7,322,564.........3.5%
2000.......8,008,288.........9.4%

Twenty-two decennial censuses and the city has gained population, often dramatically, in twenty of them. The two odd years were 1960 – when just about every great city of the North East began losing population, mostly to the suburbs – and 1980, which came at the end of a horrible decade when the city almost became ungovernable. Since 1980 (in other words, for almost thirty years – a good long time, not a momentary “blip”) the trend has been inexorably upward again. By 2000 the city had regained all the population lost in the 70s and even passed the 8,000,000 mark for the very first time. This is in stark contrast to other major North Eastern cities, most of which have lost population in every census since 1960 and all of which are smaller now than they were in 1950: Philadelphia; Detroit; Pittsburgh; Buffalo; Cleveland; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; St. Louis; Cincinatti (although the last four have shown slight upticks since 2006). Chicago has lost 747,172 since 1950 and Boston 212,303, but both seem to have stabilized somewhat in the most recent censuses. (Oh and, I know I’m linking to Wikipedia, which I normally wouldn’t do, but they have the most convenient listings of historical population figures; I’ve checked them with the Census Bureau and they seem to be accurate.) In population retention and expansion, as in many other things, New York is exceptional.

As of July 1st, 2006 the Census Bureau estimated the population of the city as 8,214,426 – an increase of 206,148 (2.57%) in six years. However, the city government disputed those numbers, claiming that the Bureau had undercounted the actual number of people here. The Bureau later accepted the city’s numbers and revised the estimated population to 8,250,567 – an increase of 242,289 (3.03%) since the last actual enumeration. (Before everyone gets all worked up about Bloomberg getting his buddies at the Census Bureau to raise the number of New Yorkers so his developer buddies can develop the hell out of the city – challenges have become fairly common in recent years, with several dozen from all over the country being filed in 2006 alone.) I don't know if the city has, or will, challenge the 2007 numbers that Crappy has reported, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

If the original estimate is correct then we would have gained an average of 34,358 people per year over those 6 years and we should expect to have about 8,351,858 by the time of the next census – a 4% increase over 2000. If the city figures are correct then it was about 40,281 per year and will be around 8,452,474 in 2010 – a 5.55% increase. Neither of these seem at all unreasonable growth rates to me – in fact, they would both represent a slowdown in growth since the last census. Both rates would put us around 9.1 million (just below, a bit above) by 2030.

You can argue, of course, that past trends don’t indicate future performance. That’s entirely true. But twenty out of the last twenty-two decades – including the last two for which we have full data and, by all indications, the most recent as well – have seen increases in population. This was during peacetime and wartime, during panics, recessions, depressions, in spite of crime, disease, and terrorism. It was also despite the depopulation of New York’s traditional peer-cities. Obviously, people have always wanted to be here. If you believe that’s going to change, change to the point that the population growth will slow, stop, or even reverse, you really have to present a pretty convincing argument as to why. (And merely saying that all these numbers are bogus because the government is full of rogues and “tweeders” is no good. Don’t believe the numbers? Then produce more accurate ones.) A few years of bad economic news, a soft job market – that’s not good enough. The city has gone through much, much worse. Cost of living – it’s absurdly expensive, yes. But it’s been that way for years and that hasn’t stopped the influx. (And remember: New York is probably better suited to survive in a world of $5 or $10 gas than most places in this country.) Sure, a meteor might fall on us tomorrow, Quetzalcoatl might come and eat up the city. The world might really end in 2012. But barring those things, for the foreseeable future there are going to be more and more of us in this New Rome, this New Jerusalem of ours.

It seems that we should get ready for that. There are vast infrastructural improvements that need to be made – housing and schools to build, subway lines to dig, etc. etc. Obstinately declining to do so is not going to preserve the city – in fact, that would probably be the one thing aside from a raging Mesoamerican god or a nuclear armed bin Laden that could finally kill it.