Dependable Erection

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Census data

I'm not trying to advocate for any of the 3 finalists for the Durham city manager position. But in the comments, there's been some suggestion that the planned community of Sunrise, FL is different enough from Durham that the managerial skills needed there might not be transferable here.

Here's some "quick facts" from the Census Bureau.

Durham
Population, 2003 estimate 198,376
Population, %change, 4/1/00 to 7/1/03 5.9%
White persons, 2000* 45.5%
Black persons, 2000 43.8%
Persons of Hispanic origin, 2000 8.6%
Median household income, 1999 $41,160
Persons below poverty, 1999 15%

Sunrise, FL
Population, 2003 estimate 89,136
Population, %change, 4/1/00 to 7/1/03 3.9%
White persons, 2000* 69.5%
Black persons, 2000 20.5%
Persons of Hispanic origin, 2000 17.1%
Median household income, 1999 $40,998
Persons below poverty, 1999 9.7%

Peoria, IL
Population, 2003 estimate 112,907
Population, %change, 4/1/00 to 7/1/03 -0.1%
White persons, 2000* 69.3%
Black persons, 2000 24.8%
Persons of Hispanic origin, 2000 2.5%
Median household income, 1999 $36,397
Persons below poverty, 1999 18.8%

Wichita, KS
Population, 2003 estimate 354,617
Population, %change, 4/1/00 to 7/1/03 1.0%
White persons, 2000* 75.2%
Black persons, 2000 11.4%
Persons of Hispanic origin, 2000 9.6%
Median household income, 1999 $39,939
Persons below poverty, 1999 11.2%

At the city level, the quick facts pages don't break out Hispanic v non-Hispanic white persons, so the numbers aren't going to add up to 100%. Also note that in three of the four cases (Wichita, Peoria, and Durham) the city comprises most of the population of the county. Sunrise, FL is in Broward County, and is probably one of the smaller cities in that county. By the way, Wichita KS is in Sedgewick County, not Wichita County, which can be confusing, at the least.

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posted by Barry at 9:03 AM Digg this

4 Comments:

  • I'll jump in first, in no small part because I'm one of those who knocked Sunrise FL for its lack of resemblance to Durham.

    While I appreciate Mr. Dependable's effort to provide us with some hard numbers for comparison, I respectfully submit that numbers alone simply cannot provide a real picture of a place (unless we start trying to compare, oh, Detroit to the Hamptons). As much as city management is about keeping the books in order and the potholes filled, it is also about how the manager affects and is affected by the culture of the community.

    Durham is not only "near-majority-minority," it is also home to a long tradition of citizen participation. Plus, Durham is generally (and unapologetically) liberal in its social politics. We want everybody to be heard and respected, whether it always works that way in the end or not.

    Several of the comments I've read lead me to believe that more than one of these candidates has practiced a rather closed-door management style in the past. Additionally, the cultural values of the communities they have worked in previously will undoubtedly have helped shape how they will respond to citizen input and in times of crisis. It's way more than just a race or poverty thing. I want to know, what are these places really like? What are their community values, especially in terms of whose voice counts? How do they typically "do" city governance? And how did that change - or not change - during the time these gentlemen were in the Manager's office?

    By Blogger katuah, at 12:00 PM  

  • Heh -- glad to know that other states have mismatched cities and counties with the same name, although I'd be surprised if there were another state that did it as pathologically as North Carolina did.

    Hmmm. I haven't blogged in a while. Maybe that's worth a post...

    By Blogger Unknown, at 12:03 PM  

  • didn't mean to imply that these numbers should carry much weight in choosing our next manager. just wanted to put them on the table in one handy place so they were easily accessible.

    as i said previously, with the possible exception of Oakland, CA, i can't think of any town that i've lived in or visited that resembles Durham enough to say that having worked there in the past might prepare you for coming here.

    By Blogger Barry, at 2:01 PM  

  • I think generally Durham compares most closely to other mid-sized southern cities built on railroads and that have a substantial university presence there. Richmond, Columbia, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Roanoke, Winston-Salem, and to a lesser extent Greenville, SC, Birmingham, Lexington, Louisville, and Greensboro come to mind.

    That's a pretty narrow base to draw a manager from, and I don't mean to impose that sort of test there. But if you're coming from Sunrise, FL, a place with pretty strongly different demographics (in age, at the very least), you should be able to come up with something other than the size of the city to explain what you think about where you're wanting to work.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 2:52 PM  

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