Here’s a letter signed by many leading Canadian researchers (including me) urging the Canadian government to restore the recently canceled Census long-form. This is a key source of data and serious trends-analysis of the Canadian economy, its cities and regions. It needs to be restored.

Long-established trends in the growth and decline of  America’s cities appear to be shifting according to new Census data released Tuesday. The data cover population trends for cities – that is, incorporated areas – from 2000 to 2009, and also for the immediate post-economic crisis period spanning July 2008 to July 2009.

Some major cities, which had long seen population decline, registered population gains. Chicago, for example, saw its population increase by 0.8 percent, its fastest pace of the decade, while New York expanded 0.5 percent, continuing gains in recent years. Other cities, notably many Sunbelt cities that had long seen rapid growth, saw their gains slow considerably for the first time in modern memory.

More than half of all cities (19 of 34) with more than 500,000 people grew faster this year than a year ago, according to demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution. Frey and other experts told the Wall Street Journal the housing bust has caused a significant slowdown in mobility, keeping younger households from moving to the suburbs, while stemming growth in Sunbelt regions. A number of larger cities and urban areas have turned around long-run population losses and begun to see consistent, if small, gains.

The chart above compares population growth for the years 2000-2009 to the more recent 2008-2009 period for the nine U.S. cities with more than one million people. Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Dallas all had recent gains which outpaced their decade-long trend. New York City was about even across both periods. But population growth slowed considerably in Phoenix, Houston, and San Diego, and somewhat less so in San Antonio, compared to the past decade.

Here’s the same kind of comparison for the 25 cities with 500,000 to one million people. Population growth accelerated considerably in Washington, D.C., Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Jose’s Silicon Valley, Austin, San Francisco, Boston, El Paso, Columbus, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, and Louisville. But former Sunbelt hot-spots – Las Vegas, Atlanta, Tucson, Albuquerque, and Jacksonville – all posted much slower growth in 2008-2009 than for the decade as a whole. Charlotte saw some slowdown, while Nashville and Milwaukee were about even, though growth was slow in the latter across both periods. Memphis appears to have stemmed its population decline, while Baltimore and Detroit continue to lose people.

And here’s how cities between 250,000 and 500,000 people fared. New Orleans saw a substantial rebound after the devastating population losses stemming from Hurricane Katrina. Population growth accelerated in Minneapolis, Oakland, and several other places. But Sunbelt cities like Henderson, Mesa, Chandler, and Miami saw substantial slowdowns. Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland continued to lose people though their rate of population loss slowed.

My own take is that this is more than a city-suburb or Sunbelt-Frostbelt story, but reflects deep and fundamental changes in America’s economic geography. The past several decades have seen a complex sorting of population by class – that is, by income, work, and human capital. America’s economic geography has become spikier – more uneven and unequal – with deepening economic and class divides increasingly overlaid and embedded in geography. These most recent trends in population, sparked by the economic crisis, reflect the playing out of these much deeper forces.

The Census Bureau’s participation map made quite a splash last week. More than half of Americans (56 percent) had completed their forms by April 5, but there was tremendous variation across the 50 states. Wisconsin topped the list with 69 percent of Wisconsinites sending in their forms. Midwestern states did well across the board with more than two-thirds of Iowans and Minnesotans completing theirs. At the opposite end of the spectrum, less than half the residents of Alaska, Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana completed theirs; 50 percent of New Yorkers had filled out their forms and 51 percent of D.C. residents.

But what factors might drive Census participation? With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, I decided to take a quick look. We examined the correlations between Census participation and economic factors, demographic characteristics, and state personality traits. This analysis is based on simple correlations which identify associations between variables but do not specify causality. I also spoke to my colleague and collaborator, the Cambridge University personality psychologist Jason Rentfrow about these results.

The short answer is that in terms of who fills out Census forms, personality is the only thing that seems to matter. We found no correlation between Census participation and key economic and demographic variables like income, economic output, education level, or type of jobs. But we found some considerable correlation between states where more people filled out their Census forms and three of what psychologists term the Big Five personality types – especially in states with high concentrations of agreeable people, extraverts, and open-to-experience types.

States with large concentrations of agreeable people were most likely to complete their Census forms (with a correlation of .43). Rentfrow says: “Agreeableness reflects a tendency to avoid conflict and to cooperate, so it makes sense that regions with large proportions of agreeable people would do what was asked of them and return their Census forms on time.”

States with large concentrations of extraverts were also more likely to complete their forms (with a correlation of .37). “One aspect of extraversion is the tendency to be expressive and reveal information about oneself,” notes Rentfrow. “So perhaps people in extraverted regions are more comfortable revealing personal information about themselves as compared to places where people are introverted and private.”

Conscientiousness comprises traits like responsibility, discipline, and obedience, so one would think that states with high concentrations of these more diligent types would be more likely to fill out their forms. But that’s not what we found. The correlation between conscientious personality types and Census participation was positive (in the range of .2)  but not statistically significant.

States with high concentrations of open-to-experience people were less likely to have their forms filled out. The correlation for all 50 states is negative but not significant in statistical terms. When we remove Alaska, which is an outlier, from the analysis, the correlation is stronger and statistically significant (-.34). Openness is a disposition toward creativity and originality. So in highly open regions, substantial numbers of people may be so focused or preoccupied with generating their next new idea – writing their latest essay, making that short film, forming a new band, or just chasing after the latest, greatest experience – that they put off their Census forms. Or, Rentfrow adds, “People high in openness tend to be unconventional and to challenge the status quo, so one possible explanation for this finding is that more people in open regions may question the legitimacy or utility of the Census.”

That leaves the neurotics. Census participation is negatively associated with neurotics, but the relationship is not statistically significant.

Ultimately, when it comes to completing the Census form, our correlations show that it’s not economics, education, or types of employment of a state that seem to matter. Personality ends up being a bigger factor, at least according to our provisional analysis. Rentfrow provides some useful context: “Completing the Census form is not just about reporting one’s age, sex, race, income, education, or occupation. It asks people to reveal something about who they are, and not everyone is comfortable or compelled to do so. Research in psychology provides some clues about which people would be likely to feel comfortable or obliged to complete their forms, and the state personality data provides a map of where those people live.”

What a time to be in Ottawa! Just when the city dodged the bullet of the 2009 municipal budget, the city is hit with a blizzard and then a transit strike:

Sam Barr left his home near the airport at 5 a.m.

“I’ve been walking for 2½ hours to get to work now. It’s pretty tough,” Barr told CBC’s Steve Fischer after meeting him on Bank Street in the Glebe.

He was heading to the Elgin Street Diner downtown, the rendezvous point for him and his colleagues, who do electrical work.

In North America, particularly in the past 50 years, residential planning has been dominated by the concept of the suburb. A demographic that didn’t exist at the time of the first American census now represents over 50 percent of the American population in the 2000 census and is overwhelmingly where children are being reared in Canada as well – in an analysis of the 2001 Canadian census data, it was determined that 17 of the 25 fastest-growing municipalities in Canada are suburbs.  Without the automobile opening up the option of living beyond the limits of mass transit, these kinds of demographics wouldn’t be possible.

As the strike lengthens and the (rather surprising) public vitriol towards labor unions grows, a city is getting to know itself by foot in a way that it hasn’t for some time. Pedestrian scale thinking is setting in and people within the region, many without cars, are being forced to re-think the way they navigate automobile-scaled environments.

This means that even moderate distance travel is now delimited by one of three things:

1. Cash flow – Can I afford a cab to where I have to go and back? Can I do this every time I go out?
2. Walking distance – How far is it? How long will it take to walk there?
3. Network capacity – Can I get a ride from someone? Do I know someone going in that direction?

For those without the cash flow to support taxis as their primary mode of transportation, walking distance is the first option for individual movement – a position that it hasn’t enjoyed for quite some time. As I prepared myself to leave my house the other day, I also realized that I hadn’t thought about distance in those terms since I was 11 or 12. And that’s when it struck me:

This strike is to the average non-driving adult in Ottawa what life is like for any kid in the suburbs without a license. While being somewhat inconvenient, this strike also offers an opportunity to appreciate something that we might take for granted: the transportation reality of youth in an auto-scaled world.

If we find those delimiters challenging during this strike as adults, imagine the experience of a young person moving into a suburb with limited access to public transportation. Their movement is restricted exactly the way that mine is now, except compounded by parent-set boundaries, inexperience, and limited income – space is really a challenge for them.

So while it might be a bit to the left, what this transit strike really has me thinking is: how can we include the perspective of someone limited by those three things – cash flow, walking distance, and network capacity – in suburban planning practices? Not specifically for transit-strike situations like this, but overwhelmingly for kids in general?

And now, as always, some music.