Thursday, March 20, 2008

Correcting the Record on Davidson County Growth

The Tennessean's report on suburban growth mentions Davidson Co. in comparison:
Davidson County saw a less than 1 percent increase in its population growth from 2006-07, ranking No. 44 on the list. Even that would be considered steady growth compared with other parts of the country
Prompting calls for correction at the Nashville Charrette:
As usual, The Tennessean bungles the story by focusing only on % growth and completely missing the Davidson correction [made late in the Census]. The 2007 population for Davidson County is 619,626 and the corrected 2006 figure is 613,856. Davidson had a nominal growth of 5,770 from 06 to 07, the fifth highest nominal gain in the state, and nominal growth of 49,276 from 2000 to 2007, the second highest in the state. Only Rutherford County gained more people from 2000 to 2007.
Expect the Tennessean piece to generate the usual round of mantras about how suburbs are so much less taxing than cities and that stupendous growth reflects an exclusively anti-revenue mood, but let's make sure that the census details are not ignored in the beginning just to score group-think points.

No comments:

Post a Comment