City to census: Where’d all the people go?

Ride the No. 7 — New York’s ghost train!

Perplexed city planners today said federal bean counters came up a several hundred thousand short in the latest US Census, and that their data incredibly suggests entire neighborhoods along the Flushing local are a virtual moonscape.

The feds say Brooklyn’s population grew by a scant 1.6 percent while Queens’ barely budged, up just 0.1 percent, which translates to 1,300 people since 2000. Other boroughs averaged about a 4 percent jump.

“I’m flabbergasted, I know they made a big, big mistake,” said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

Mayor Bloomberg was also surprised by the low percentage increases.

“I’m not criticizing them, but it doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “And so, you know, the idea that Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx recorded substantial increases, while Brooklyn only grew by 1.6 percent and Queens grew by a tenth of one percent, it just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Overall, the city claims New York’s population is 8.4 million, compared to the census bureau’s estimate of 8.175 million.

The discrepancy could mean hundreds of millions in lost federal aid, and city officials vowed to fight to force the feds to revise the numbers upward.

City officials say other census numbers simply don’t add up. They point out that about 170,000 new housing units have sprung up in the past decade – while the census says the population increased by only about 166,000.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the US Census “has never known how to count urban populations and needs to go back to the drawing board.”

He said it was hard to believe that the city “has grown by only 167,000 people” over the last decade.

“To claim that growth over the last decade in Brooklyn was 1.6 percent and growth in Queens was 0.1 percent flies in the face of reality.”

Share Selection