Redistricting, the process by which electoral districts are drawn, will happen locally as well as at the state and federal levels. San Francisco will use census and resident input to redraw its supervisorial districts, a process that begins this year and will likely carry on into 2022. Alison Goh, president of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco, explained to “Civic” how the process will work and outlined the transparency and outreach the League wants to see from the city.
Category: Census
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Census, Community, Government & Politics
Census Education Falls to Community Groups as Trump Fans Confusion
The 2020 census is well under way, but a timetable muddled by the coronavirus pandemic coupled with attempts by President Trump to make disruptive changes have set the stage for the spread of misinformation that threatens a complete count. Local nonprofit organizations have been working to get correct and timely information to people often labeled “hard to count” to avoid that outcome.
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Census, Government & Politics, Homelessness, Social Justice
Online Census Yields Mixed Accessibility Results
This year the census, a constitutionally mandated count of every person in the country every 10 years, is being conducted primarily online for the first time. While the shift offered convenience to the digitally connected, many communities already considered “hard to count” include people with limited digital tools or literacy that put the digital questionnaire out of reach. With the coronavirus pandemic and confusing federal directives, the in-person enumeration most likely to document them has been delayed and cut short.
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Census, Government & Politics, Homelessness, Social Justice
Threats to Exclude Undocumented From Census Exemplify Fears of Other ‘Hard-to-Count’ Communities
The decennial census is used to determine how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives. And according to the Project on Government Oversight, California can also expect to receive more than $170 billion in census-guided federal funding over the next ten years. In a July memo, the President sought to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to apportion representatives. But past encounters with well-meaning government agents have already made some homeless, poor, undocumented and otherwise marginalized people skeptical that being counted will actually benefit them.
Posted inCensus, Coronavirus, Homelessness, Housing
Coronavirus Pandemic Delays Census Count of Homeless
Before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the United States was ramping up its biggest peacetime mobilization: the Census. A complete count of all people in the nation is taken every 10 years, but this year, the shelter-in-place and social distancing orders to curb the spread of COVID-19 have forced the Census Bureau to adapt its timeline for the count.
Posted inBay Area, Census, City Hall, Housing, Land use, News, Remaking Rent Control
Cities Sic the Taxman on Vacant ‘Ghost Homes’
Is an abundance of vacant units worsening the Bay Area’s housing crisis? That’s what some politicians have suggested. Their solution: a new tax on landlords who leave residential and commercial properties unrented. Oakland will vote in November and an S.F. measure is being planned for 2019. Vancouver, Melbourne and Paris already levy such taxes.
Posted inBay Area, Bay Area Smart Growth, Census, Land use
Census Estimates Show Bay Area Growing Faster than Expected
New residents are flocking to the Bay Area faster than regional planners previously expected.
Posted inBay Area, Bay Area Smart Growth, Census, Education, Housing, Land use, News, Transportation
Map: Where we live now — 2010 household density and priority development areas
Part of the challenge facing regional planners, who wrote the 30-year Plan Bay Area, is that it is hard to predict future population growth. The current list of more than 200 potential priority development areas in the plan tracks established high-density zones closely, indicating that the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and other regional agencies want to fill in developments in areas that are already highly urbanized or near mass transit lines, instead of in undeveloped or underdeveloped suburban settings. This map helps readers of the Public Press’s summer edition special project, Growing Smarter: Planning for a Bay Area of 9 Million, understand these trends.
Posted inBay Area, Census, Media, Social Justice
Black flight from Oakland to suburbs is reshaping makeup of the city
Oakland remains the largest African American city in California after Los Angeles. In the last decade, however, the city has had a net loss of 33,000, nearly a quarter of its African American residents. This decline is part of a larger trend seen across cities nationwide.
Posted inCensus, City Hall, Homelessness, News
Census methods could provide lift to hidden homeless
The 2010 Census may address an old problem in dealing with San Francisco’s homeless population by getting an accurate head count. The city’s homeless figures have ranged between about 6,500 and 8,600 people in the last decade, but the real number is anybody’s guess. The sketchy knowledge of who is living on the street has been a big impediment to perennial attempts to solve the crisis.