That’s what the Census estimates from the American Community Survey say. I find that hard to believe.
Greater Greater Washington writers and commenters attribute it to lower family sizes in Ward 1 as new single residents or couples come in, replacing families, while William Jordan attributes it to “Pay to play land speculation,” displacement by gentrifiers and a Census estimate revision from a few years ago.
In 2006, a Census estimate came out saying the city’s population had dropped, to which the city disagreed, citing new construction and increased tax filings in the city. The Census looked again and revised the estimate up, meaning the city gained population for the first time since 1950. Jordan says this re-estimate was too high, and thus this new estimate is correct.
Here’s my take: there certainly has been displacement, and that’s something we need to look at, but there’s also been tons of new construction. Look at 14th Street, where many new condo and apartment buildings replaced abandoned buildings and empty lots. I can’t think of any examples where they replaced occupied apartment buildings.
And all over the neighborhood, abandoned houses have been renovated into multiple housing units. Sure, most of the newcomers don’t have families, but some do or are couples. To me, hundreds of new people moving into new condos and apartments would be more than the number of families who move out of houses and are replaced by one or two people.
Mike DeBonis also tweeted that Ward 1 voter registration is up 25% over the past 7 years.
Of course, this is just an estimate, and may be wrong. The ACS is based on samples of data rather than actual counts, and it’s also an average over five years. We’ll see when the 2010 Census numbers come out.
Update: Jordan did not attribute who is doing the displacing.
Photo by Mr. T in DC
