Trying to pull something positive out of the 2010 Census...

By now, you've probably heard endless analysis of the 2010 US Census results. In ten years, Detroit lost a quarter of its population and is at its lowest numbers since 1910. The Free Press published a pretty interesting map showing population change over the last ten years by census tract. The official count (713,777 residents) is apparently far lower than anyone expected, and Dave Bing plans to challenge that number. He might be right, because the Free Press article mentions that the Census undercounted Detroit by 50,000 residents in 2000, and the city was successful in getting the number changed.

The Census results are obviously bad news in many ways for Detroit -- on a practical level, the city will lose state and federal funding as well as representation in government. And this is just more glaring proof that the city's epic decline refuses to quit, even into the twenty-first century.

Still, I don't think these Census results mean that Detroit is on the brink of total collapse and that everyone should abandon ship as a quickly as possible. For one thing, I don't think it's necessarily devastating for Detroit to end up with a lower population than it had at its peak in the mid-twentieth century. Large population does not equal a better city. Honestly, I don't think it's that big of a surprise that Detroit lost 25% of its population. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to attract either new residents or businesses to most of the decaying neighborhoods on the far east and north sides. Most of the population movement in these areas is understandably moving out of, not into, the city.

If you look at the Free Press map, the majority of census tracts which either gained population or lost relatively little population are clustered around the downtown/Wayne State/Woodbridge/Southwest Detroit area. These are clearly the areas that are attracting the most attention. If Detroit ended up as a smaller, more dense city with a lot of green space and great public transportation, I think that would be an overwhelmingly positive change. So, the Census results basically validate what Bing has been trying to do -- stop wasting resources trying to desperately fill in a sprawling, disconnected city. Detroit can be smaller and better.