More on the Greenburgh Census & COVID too

I.  That Confounding Census

The Greenburgh townwide population increased from 88,400 in the 2010 census to 95,397 in the 2020 census  - that's 8% growth.  

This increase, however, starts to seem puzzling when examining other data.  For example, according to the 2020 census, occupied housing units in the town increased by 2,281 since 2010 to 35,776 townwide  (1,789 units apparently are vacant).   These 7000 additional residents have to live somewhere, and with relatively few new housing units, the town saw an increase from 2.64 residents per housing unit in 2010 to 2.67 per unit in 2020.   

Maybe there's a baby boom and families are growing?  That's not the case as the census also shows that the population growth is entirely among residents aged eighteen and over, who increased by 6,897 turning the same time period.  In fact, in each of the six villages, as well as TOV, the percent of the population that is 18 and over stayed the same or increased.     

And it gets weirder when looking more closely at some of the village housing numbers.  Hastings' population increased by 741 but the village's housing units only increaed by 28 total.  Tarrytown, conversely, has 583 more residents but also 345 more housing units.  

We have another source of data independent of the US Census that can be helpful:  school enrollments collected and vetted by the NY State Education Department annually.   We know that in the 2019-2020 school year, there were 17,669 kids in Greenburgh enrolled in K-12 school programs, including public, private, parochial and even 38 kids who were homeschooled that year.   As far as 2009-2010, we can find that 15,857 kids were enrolled in public schools, but we don't have the private school numbers.  Why not just match up public school numbers across decades?  That's not a great data point because close to 10% of Greenburgh kids typically attend non-public schools.  However we do know that in recent years, nonpublic school enrollment has been dropping town wide.  The closest school year nonpublic enrollment number to 2010 that I can find is from 2013-2014 when 1,815 kids townwide were enrolled in nonpublic schools. This approach is far from perfect, but using the 2009-10 public (15,857) plus the 2013-14 private (1,815) gives us 17,672 K-12 kids townwide.  This just happens to match nearly exactly the 2019-2020 K-12 number of kids townwide of 17,669.   Yes, there are assumptions being stretched, but it seems likely that over the past decade there has in fact been no increase in the school age population townwide. 

So where do we stand?

1.  Greenburgh population as reported by the US Census grew by 7,000 from 2010 to 2020.

2.  That growth appears to be entirely in adults as 

    a.  the census shows almost 7,000 additional residents in 2020 who are 18 or over, 

    b.  the census shows no growth in under 18 year old population from 2010 to 2020

    c.  school enrollments townwide do not appear to have increased from 2010 to 2020.

3.  This growth is confounding as it makes little sense that the adult population grew 10% while the child population (under 18) would show zero growth.  

4.  It seems bizarre that the town would grow by 7,000 additional adults (with no increase in children), but add only 2,281 housing units during the past decade.  Are these adult tripling up?  Is Greenburgh that progressive? 

At this point, it would not be crazy to ask if the 2010 census is reliable: did it undercount?    A possible explanation comes from voter enrollment numbers.   Voter rolls are very unreliable as a measurement of population because the rolls are not regularly updated as voters move away or pass on.   However, we can see trends and we do see from the county Board of Elections that registered voters in Greenburgh (both active and inactive) increased from 2010 to 2020 by 5,162.    This is only speculation but maybe the 2010 census undercounted a couple of thousand residents resulting in an actual adult increase of 5000 or so, who will fit more comfortably into those 2181 additional housing units?

https://data.lohud.com/census/total-population/total-population-change/greenburgh-town-westchester-county-new-york/060-3611930367/

II.  DELTA VARIANT PLATEAUING (FOR NOW)

After increasing by one hundred active cases in ten days, active cases townwide settled at 249 as reported on August 22, close to the total (249) from August 15.  Has the Delta Variant wave, which took the town from 31 active cases in mid-July to 260 in mid-August, crested? 

                                                                        

Fun with Congressional Redistricting- REVISED 8/16

NOTE:  THIS IS AN EVOLVING BLOG POST, SO CHECK BACK FOR UPDATES

It's redistricting time for Congress and state senate/assembly district lines. The boundaries soon to be drawn by New York's Independent Redistricting Commission will take effect for the 2022 elections.  

I'm just going to deal with the Congressional districts in this post.   As you all know, New York lost one congressional seat, reducing our delegation from 27 to 26 districts. Also, since the 2010 census, the state has seen a slight shift in population toward downstate. Whereas, the state population grew 823,147 since 2010, 740,623 (90%) of that increase came "downstate" (ie. NYC, Westchester and Nassau counties.  

With this population shift, one might expect that in addition to losing a Congressional seat (from 27 to 26), a Congressional seat will be shifted from upstate to downstate, giving NYC an additional representative.  However, with the 2020 redistricting, each Congressional district in New York has expanded from 717,707 to 776,971 residents.  As a result, in NYC, where most of the population growth occurred, the existing districts absorb most of the districts' expansion without the need for dramatic transformation of district lines.  The impact on districts upstate, while more severe, is tempered by the relatively easy task of expanding 2010 districts to absorb the one-district loss that ensued from the 2020 census.  

Note: NY"s Congressional seats at 776,971 are slightly higher than the national average of 762,000. With our 26 districts, are 390,000 New Yorkers (26 X 15,000) effectively disenfranchised?  Maybe it's time to expand Congress?

Now comes the fun part.  Thanks to some very cool websites, you too can try redistricting yourself at home and role play running the redistricting commission without having to sit through endless hours of citizens' comments.  

New York's government - the governor (cough), the state senate and assembly -- are all securely in the hands of Democrats.  While previous redistricting was purportedly balanced, I'm assuming that the new redistricting will ultimately favor Democrats.   I'm a Democrat and I'm not going to pretend to be fair and balanced.   Currently, of New York's 27 Congresspeople, 8 are Republicans with 9 districts considered to lean Republican.  That's not going to continue under my redistricting plan.  Of course, I don't have to face legal challenges afterward, so that's easy for me to say.  

Each Congressional district has to be very close to 776,971 (each NY Congressional district in New York must be within .75% of 776,971 residents).  I managed to carve out 26 districts with the biggest discrepancy being 486 residents.  Dropping one district entirely was very easy as Rep. Tom Reed has announced his retirement - perhaps only coincidentally coming  after accusations of Cuomo-like behavior.   Reed represents New York's 23rd district - which is basically the "southern tier" stretching along the Pennsylvania border.  Goodbye, NY's 23rd!  

Also, I've tried to be conscious of the privileges of seniority to some extent:  that means no extreme messing around with Democrats Jerry Nadler (1992), Nydia Valazquez and Carolyn Maloney (1993) and Gregory Meeks (1998).  With Tom Reed's retirement, the senior Republicans took office only in 2015 (Stefanik, Zeldin, and Karko), which doesn't earn them too much deference.   

I. Upstate

For the "upstate" portion of my plan, I've kept Democrats Brian Higgins (Buffalo 26) and Joe Morelle (Rochester 25) in their safe Democratic districts.  

This leaves Republican Chris Jacobs with a safe seat in the state's rural far west in a reconfigured,  23rd.  On the other hand, I've tried to make Republican John Katko's slightly Democratic leaning district 24 (which includes Syracuse) more firmly Democratic.   I've narrowed the Republican majority in district 22 to give a challenge to newcomer Republican Claudia Tenney who won by just 109 votes last year.  Rising Republican star Elise Stefanik' s 21st district still maintains a small Republican advantage.  I moved Troy and some of the capitol area from Paul Tonko's secure district to bolster Antonio Delgado in the competitive 19th district.  I've also stretched 19 west to give Delgado some of Binghamton. .   

Of the 5 upstate Republican congressional seats we have currently, I believe only one (Jacobs in the 23rd)  is totally safe.  Under my proposal, Stefanik and Tenney's districts still lean Republican, but by narrow margins.  As my map shows, this was achieved without resorting to outlandish gerrymandering.

 

II. Downstate

As far as downstate, I've had to reconfigure 16 (Jamaal Bowman), 17 (Mondaire Jones) and 18 (Sean Maloney) to make the downstate population shift work.  

In theory Sean Maloney is vulnerable but I've managed reconfigure his 18th district to the west half of the Hudson valley while very slightly increasing his narrow Democratic voter majority from his current district lines.  Although I believe he's losing his home in Cold Spring (along with Putnam and parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties), I'm keeping the Western half of his current district intact and giving him part of Rockland.  I'm also speculating that Maloney, in his fifth term, will fair better in these conservative leaning areas west of the Hudson than the freshmen progressive caucus members in 16 and 17.  Which leads us to progressive caucus freshmen Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman.  I've reconfigured 16 and 17 fairly significantly as I've had to push both district upstate.  I've kept Jones in his new White Plains apartment, and given him most of the east half of Westchester County, up through Putnam, Dutchess on the east side of the Hudson.  As a Greenburgh resident, I insist on unifying Greenburgh in one Congressional district that I'm giving to Bowman along with the south/east portion of Rockland County.  Bowman keeps Yonkers, southern Westchester but loses much of the Bronx. Sorry guys, but redistricting is not the best time to be a freshman.  

III. NYC

New York City is a jumble with 11 districts, which I've adjusted somewhat but kept largely intact to ( keep each representative within their home bases, along with maintaining - with only minor adjustments - Black and Hispanic majority districts where they currently exist, as well as Grace Meng's Queen's 6th district.   I've adjusted Jerry Nadler's bizarrely "Jerrymandered" district to dig into Malliotakis's current Republican voter majority, refining the 11th to 50/50 while keeping Nadler's 10th very safely Democratic.  I've also adjusted the boundaries of Garbarino's 2nd district on Long Island to narrow his small Republican majority even further.  

 

With my current redistricting proposal, the 26 districts' partisan lean ends up as follows:

             DIST       Pop.                +/-                                                          DEM %.         REP %

1	776,671	-0.04%			46.39%	53.61%
2	776,485	-0.06%			49.51%	50.49%
3	777,389	0.05%			53.12%	46.88%
4	777,412	0.06%			58.39%	41.61%
5	777,150	0.02%			88.46%	11.54%
6	777,118	0.02%			67.75%	32.25%
7	776,808	-0.02%			90.18%	9.82%
8	776,545	-0.05%			89.88%	10.12%
9	776,926	-0.01%			85.41%	14.59%
10	777,086	0.01%			75.55%	24.45%
11	776,910	-0.01%			50.06%	49.94%
12	776,847	-0.02%			80.99%	19.01%
13	776,710	-0.03%			93.95%	6.05%
14	777,037	0.01%			84.52%	15.48%
15	776,945	0.00%			95.89%	4.11%
16	777,021	0.01%			67.70%	32.30%
17	776,772	-0.03%			54.66%	45.34%
18	776,877	-0.01%			51.44%	48.56%
19	777,036	0.01%			51.21%	48.79%
20	777,117	0.02%			55.52%	44.48%
21	776,755	-0.03%			47.21%	52.79%
22	777,470	0.06%			48.32%	51.68%
23	777,138	0.02%			38.83%	61.17%
24	776,989	0.00%			54.37%	45.63%
25	776,961	0.00%			57.65%	42.35%
26	777,074	0.01%			62.10%	37.90%
	STATEWIDE				62.99%	37.01%

Greenburgh's Growth: Surge in population and COVID cases

I. 2020 CENSUS  

Greenburgh town/village population increases from 2000 and 2010 censuses to the present:

Town/Village	2000 Census	2010 Census	2020 Census	2000-2020 Increase	2010-2020 increase
Elmsford	4151	4664	5239	26.2%	12.3%
Tarrytown	11090	11277	11869	7.0%	5.2%
Hastings	7622	7849	8590	12.7%	9.4%
Irvington	6638	6420	6652	0.2%	3.6%
Ardsley	4285	4452	5079	18.5%	14.1%
Dobbs	10618	10875	11277	6.2%	3.7%
Villages	44404	45537	48706	9.7%	7.0%
TOV	42360	42863	46691	10.2%	8.9%
Greenburgh	86764	88400	95397	9.9%	7.9%

This steep population increase raises the question: where are all these newcomers living? Where is all the new housing to accommodate this population surge?    We'll revisit the details of Greenburgh's demographic growth and transformation when more census information is released in September.  

II.  COVID

The Delta Variant wave continues to be a real thing in Greenburgh.  After falling to as low as 21 active COVID cases townwide in mid-June, townwide active cases crossed the 200 threshold this week.   For some context, the rate of increase in active cases for the Delta Variant appears to be slightly slower than during the Second Wave surge in November 2020 when it took Greenburgh 11 days to rise from below 100 active cases to above 200.  The Delta Variant wave has taken Greenburgh 13 days from late July to mid-August for the same increase.  Still at 223 active cases townwide (as of August 12, 2021), we are very far from the Second Wave peak of 978 townwide cases reached on January 20, 2020.  

Slow but steady progress is being made in vaccinations, including, especially the vaccination laggard zip codes in town:

One Shot (among eligibles)
	zip code	21-Jul	12-Aug
Elmsford	10523	65%	68%
WP	10603	68%	70%
WP	10607	72%	74%
Tarrytown	10591	76%	78%
Ardsley	10502	85%	87%
Scarsdale	10583	78%	79%
Hastings	10706	83%	85%
Dobbs Ferry	10522	74%	76%
Irvington	10533	77%	79%
Hartsdale	10530	77%	78%

Rising (but still low) COVID active cases and more

The county reported that active COVID cases in Greenburgh reached 106 - the highest number since May 13 - but this total is still only a fraction of the second wave peak of 973 active cases back on Jan 20, 2021.   So yes, cases are rising from the low point of 21 active cases in mid-June, but keep context in mind:

DEATHS:    The state and county still won't give us municipal death numbers.  We have to rely on the county data.  Since March 16, 2021 (4 1/2 months), there have been 156 COVID deaths in the county, with residents accounting for 144 of those.  That's 6% of the total COVID deaths in Westchester since the pandemic began in March 2020, which stands at 2484 for the county with 2296 being residents.  Westchester County's population is 967,000. 

VACCINATIONS:

It was announced today that the US has reached the Biden administration's target of 70% of Americans eligible for vaccinations having received at least one shot.   

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/02/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine

Is Greenburgh keeping pace? Most of Greenburgh is doing well but two of the town's zip codes actually fall short of the national average: Elmsford 10523 and White Plains 10603.  (Note that these rates include populations in adjacent towns covered by these zip codes):

	zip code	at least one shot%
Elmsford	10523	66%
WP	10603	68%
WP	10607	73%
Tarrytown	10591	77%
Ardsley	10502	86%
Scarsdale	10583	78%
Hastings	10706	84%
Dobbs Ferry	10522	75%
Irvington	10533	78%
Hartsdale	10530	77%

At least we're not as bad as neighboring Valhalla where the first shot only vaccination rate is a low 60%.  Also note the contrast between Hastings (84%) and adjacent Yonkers zip codes at 55%.