MID-DECADE CENSUS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1971 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C. The committee met at 10 a.m. in room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Charles H. Wilson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. WILSON. The subcommittee will come to order. In the first hearings held by the Subcommittee on Census and Statistics on May 18 we obtained positive and informative statements on the need for mid-decade census legislation from Dr. A. Ross Eckler, former Director of the Bureau of the Census, and Mr. John Aiken, executive director, Federal Statistics Users Conference. Generally, they recommended that a scaled-down census of population and housing be undertaken with provisions to provide basic data for small areas. Both indicated there were even stronger justifications than ever before in having available census data more often than once in 10 years. Adding luster to our hearings, we were privileged to receive a very pertinent presentation on the quinquennial census programs undertaken by our neighbor to the north, Canada. Despite a very busy schedule, Mr. Walter E. Duffett, Dominion Statistician, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Government of Canada, appeared before us and outlined the circumstances influencing Canada to authorize its quin. quennial census series. As I stated at the opening hearings, it is about time to come to grips on the establishment of a mid-decade census program and we plan to make every reasonable effort, if warranted, to enact the required legislation. For the hearings today, we have scheduled an impressive array of professional associations and representatives of State, county, and municipal governments. Recalling previous testimony offered by these organizations on the subject matter of these hearings, I know that we will be brought up to date with their current views and that we will be provided with various alternatives for our deliberations. In view of the sizable list of witnesses, we shall limit the oral presentations to a period of 5 minutes or less in order that all of our distinguished guests will be given the opportunity to testify. Before I introduce our first witness, I wish to acknowledge the presence of a number of foreign technicians representing countries all over the world with several of their instructors at the Census Bureau. At our first hearing on May 18 we were privileged to have foreign technicians taking an agriculture statistics course at the Census Bu reau. However, I understand this delegation with us today is concentrating on a course of studies in the fields of population census and statistics, subject areas which are most relevant to our hearings. On behalf of the subcommittee, I certainly welcome you to this hearing and to the Congress. As our leadoff witness, it gives us great pleasure to have Mr. David B. Klotz, who represents the American Institute of Planners, and he is the chairman of the Census Committee of the American Institute of Planners. STATEMENT OF DAVID B. KLOTZ, CHAIRMAN, CENSUS COMMITTEE, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PLANNERS; ACCOMPANIED BY ALBERT MASSONI, NATIONAL AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PLANNERS STAFF Mr. KLOTZ. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am David B. Klotz, and I am chairman of the Census Committee of the American Institute of Planners. I am also a practicing regional planner employed as deputy director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Com mission that has an interstate jurisdiction in the Greater Philadelphia area. Our comments today respond to the questions the committee has been exploring. It may be appropriate for me to point out that we appreciate this opportunity to testify concerning the need for decisive action by your subcommittee to authorize a mid-decade census. We hope this committee will undertake the drafting of a bill which will provide for a mid-decade census to meet the clearly established needs for mid-decade benchmark data. The views presented here this morning reflect the opinion of the census committee and the information systems department of the American Institute of Planners and they are representative of the institute's membership of 6,000 professional planners who are directly employed by, or serve as consultants to, general and special purpose governments at local, city, county, regional, interstate and Federal levels and by growing numbers of private business and industrial firms. Present with me today is Mr. Albert Massoni of the National AIP staff. We have probably not added significantly in our testimony to the record compiled by this committee in its previous hearings. It may be important to note that planners generally are the guys that roll up their sleeves and dig into census data and planning data on behalf of government decision makers at all levels of government. Our comments on the need for a mid-decade census reflect the variety of experience that we have accumulated in working with census data in behalf of those elected officials. We testified before this committee concerning the need for more frequent censuses of population, housing and employment in 1962, 1965, and 1967. Today we reaffirm the previous statements and wish to indicate there is an urgent need for early action. If the Census Bureau is to have adequate time for preplanning a mid-decade census and to fully coordinate its plans with users of census data in both the public and private sectors of the Nation, we believe action on an appriate bill should be taken this year. In August 1967, in his opening address to the House as it considered the then current mid-decade census bill, the former chairman of this subcommittee, Mr. William Green, pointed out that the Congress is "charged with the responsibility of planning for the present and future of this country." He said, "I think it is important for us, charged with that responsibility as we are, to have the facts and figures that we need to make intelligent decisions." The members of the American Institute of Planners each and all identify with that charge and feel that same need. We believe the same challenge has been accepted by the elected and appointed leadership of almost all of the Nation's nearly 100,000 units of general and special purpose government that serve the public in one way or other. The scope of their concerns and the scale of the work undertaken by these governments vary widely, but the challenge of planning intelligently for the future and the need for a factual basis for the plan is identical. There can be little doubt but that U.S. Census data plays a critical role in providing a factual basis for many planning activities, and that the 10-year period between censuses is far too long. The highlights of a recent poll of our census committee membership on these points revealed a broad array of needs for mid-decade census data. A member of our census committee who is a New Jersey State government planner has pointed out that a report was recently issued in his State titled "Plainfield Studied and Restudied." This report states that during the decade of the sixties over 100 separate planning reports have been prepared for Plainfield, N.J., on at least 20 topics ranging from solid waste collection and disposal studies to plans for housing of the elderly and the busing of schoolchildren. Each report begins with, or at least includes, an analysis of the population affected the size of the group, their special characteristics, and their needs. A member of the census committee who is with the planning commission in the city of Detroit has pointed out: Types of policy decisions which depend upon current population and housing statistics include decisions to have special social and physical programs in an area; the geographic delineation of a project area; the educational, health and housing needs of the people in an area; the relocation load from public actions; decisions to change zoning, master plan or special designations; and documentation for grant app'ications for such programs. The effectiveness of those programs will depend upon the matching of program activities with the needs of the people in the program area. Programs based on old population data waste program funds. She points out that between 1960 and 1970 the population in Detroit declined slightly and the characteristics of the population in 42 percent of the census tracts changed by more than 10 percent. In 12 percent of the census tracts the characteristics of the population changed by more than 25 percent. A member of our census committee who is a planner in Fairfax County, Va., points out that Fairfax County grew by 83 percent from 249,000 people to 455,000 people in the decade of the sixties. He advises us that in order to monitor this change and maintain an effective governmental planning process in his county they have established an urban development information system. This information system makes use of the county tax assessor records to keep tabs on new housing as it is built to accommodate the massive population increase. But, in order to accurately estimate the size and nature of the population change they multiply the number of new housing units times the appropriate average household size by age, race, and income which is obtained from the census data. They report that this item of information is extremely valuable but "it is little more than guessing after the data is more than 5 years old." A member of our census committee, working at the regional level has advised us that Clayton County, in the Atlanta Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area experienced an annual average population change of nearly 8 percent during the decade of the 1960's or a total increase from 46,365 persons to 98,043 persons during the decade. She points out that it is changes of this type that make the guidelines of the Federal Highway Administration meaningful. They require a major reevaluation of the Regional Transportation Plan every 5 years. But she also points out that without reasonably current census data the effectiveness of the plan reevaluation process is severely restricted, and the persuasive power of the analysis is diminished in the eyes of local and State decisionmakers. A member of our census committee, employed by an interstate agency with responsibilities for planning for the five counties in Pennsylvania and three counties in New Jersey that comprise the Philadelphia standard metropolitan statistical area reports that the cost sharing arrangements for the planning of this region are divided between the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey on the basis of the proportion of the population residing in each State and are further divided within States according to the proportion of population residing in each city and county. He indicates that within the Pennsylvania portion of the region the entire population growth occurred in the suburbs while Philadelphia city's population remained relatively constant. This has meant that Philadelphia City, that is hard pressed for funds, carried an increasingly disproportionate share of the total costs of planning for the region during the decade while the suburban counties whose fiscal problems are less severe, received the benefit resulting from this allocation mechanism. Still, no more trustworthy mechanism has been found. A member of our census committee at work in a department of the executive branch of the Federal Government reports that the Federal Highway Administration has issued their instructional memorandum 50-4-68 that requires an annual surveillance of the major development changes in every urban region in the United States for which there is an urban transportation planning process. The implementation of 50-4-68 requires each affected urban region to make extensive use of sample data and local data sources. Without the accurate benchmarks which are obtained almost universally from the U.S. Census of Population, the validity of this sample data and the utility of other local source data declines progressively throughout each decade, and is in substantial error in the last half of each decade in many regions. This sampling of the experience of practicing planners at many levels of Government demonstrates the variety of uses and the widespread needs for census data in general and specifically for more frequent census data. We can generally say the metabolism of planning analysis is closely related to 10-year cycle of census data. From a year and a half to |