Boro Census Drop ‘Nonsense’: City
By DOMENICK RAFTER
The near-stagnant population in Queens revealed by the 2010 Census is nonsensical, and the City filed a challenge to the results in the Northwestern part of the borough, the NYC Dept. of City Planning told the Queens Borough Board this week.
“The idea that the population didn’t change [in Queens], that the number of occupied housing units went down, is not reasonable at all,” Joseph Salvo, the director of population division for the NYC Dept. of City Planning, said at a meeting of the Queens Borough Cabinet this week.
The focus of the problem was Astoria, where Census figures show the biggest loss of population citywide, coupled with a 400 percent increase in housing vacancies. Jackson Heights also returned a population drop and rise in vacancies. Those results baffled local officials and residents in that area, who all agree the neighborhood has continued to grow.
Salvo said the city’s own statistics from the years preceding the Census do not add up in Astoria and Jackson Heights, even as it does in other parts of the borough, including parts that lost a significant population like Queens Village and Cambria Heights.
Using statistics like the number of foreclosures, inquiries to the postal service about units that do not receive mail, as well as City Dept. of Finance filings, the results did not point to a loss in population or rise in vacancies in Northwest Queens.
Salvo suggested that errors in the local Census office in Astoria were to blame for the mistake. The communities around Astoria and Jackson Heights, including Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside, Elmhurst and Corona, saw growth at or exceeding expectations; within the two neighborhoods there was a drop – almost perfectly outlining the borders of the area handled by that local Census office.
A similar problem occurred in Southwest Brooklyn, also almost entirely contained within one Census office. The city is also challenging the results there.
The problem, Salvo said, may be the way the Census offices tabulated the vacant apartments they were not able to get access to. Instead of making estimations, the offices might have just registered them vacant when they actually were not.
Salvo said he would testify before Congress in the spring about the Census issues in New York City and warned that any change in the tabulations because of errors would come too late to affect redistricting, though any mistakes cleared up would help the Census bureau in the 2020 Census, the planning for which begins in just a few years.
Reach Reporter Domenick Rafter at drafter@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 125.