200 Years of the Census in Ohio
Community Research Partners released its fifth edition of Data Bytes (PDF), “Celebrating 200 Years of the Census in Ohio”. This Data Byte analyzes data for Ohio from the 1810, 1860, 1910, 1960, and 2000 censuses and the 2008 American Community Survey.
In 1810, Ohio had 230,760 people, with 55% under age 16 and over 99% who were white. “Spirits distilled” was the top manufacturing category in product value. The last 200 years have seen Ohio transition from rural to urban to suburban development patterns and from agriculture to manufacturing to services economies. Ohio has grown more populous and older, with 11.5 million residents in 2008 who had a median age of 38.2 years. The state is more diverse than ever, with African Americans at 12% of the population and fast-growing Hispanic and Asian populations that each nearly doubled from 1990 to 2008.
This Data Byte is a part of CRP’s activities to help promote the 2010 Census. In March 2010, the Census Bureau will mail census forms to households to count every U.S. resident. Most households will receive forms in the middle of the month. Census data will help determine the allocation of $400 billion annually in federal funding for infrastructure, schools, public services, and other community investments. The results will also affect the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The full report can be read here: Celebrating 200 Years of the Census in Ohio (PDF).
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Related Tags: census • community research partners • demographics • jung kim • ohio • population • studies
March 9th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I love looking through historical data like this. Will have to read through the full PDF later tonight!
March 9th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Columbus clearly continues to grow while the rest of Ohio’s major cities are shrinking, and dramatically so. Look at Cleveland! It now has less than half it’s peak population of 915,000. Youngstown and Canton at just under 70,000, meanwhile, are now barely larger than some of the state’s largest suburbs.
I know there are people who probably gloat at the rest of the state’s decline and decay, but please believe that it’s only good for us to the extent that the rest of the state isn’t holding us back and dragging us down. Issue 3’s emotionally-manipulated passage and the resulting obligatory casino in C-bus didn’t do a lot to convince me otherwise. As a city, Columbus is ultimately at the mercy of a depressed state that is experiencing a paradigm of failure, defeat and collapse that counters our paradigm of youth, opportunity and hope. We’re still vastly outnumbered.
So then, can we spread what we are doing right to the rest of the state?
March 10th, 2010 at 2:06 am
Columbus is probably triple the size in land mass of Cincinnati…Its more spread out here, thats why we have more people. If you got o Cincinnati or Cleveland it feels much larger than Columbus. Its all Sprawl in Central Ohio.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:25 am
NEOBuckeye Says: Columbus clearly continues to grow while the rest of Ohio’s major cities are shrinking, and dramatically so. Look at Cleveland! It now has less than half it’s peak population of 915,000. Youngstown and Canton at just under 70,000, meanwhile, are now barely larger than some of the state’s largest suburbs.
That is true, but one thing to keep in mind is that Columbus had the most aggressive annexation plans during those decades of decline. If we had kept the same pre-1950s boundaries, we would have suffered a population loss as well. Our boundary growth has allowed us to continue to grow as a city instead of lose those populations to the growing suburbs.
It has been a bit of a double-edged sword though, so I agree with you that our population gains aren’t anything that locals should be gloating about to the rest of the state. It’s growth, but it hasn’t been “smart growth”.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:03 am
“Its all Sprawl in Central Ohio.”
It’s true that Cincy and Cleveland have smaller city limits and denser cores, but there is WAY more sprawl around Cleveland and Cincy than Columbus! The entire 75 corridor from Cincy to Dayton, from Cleveland east to Mentor or beyond, west to Lorain, south to Akron… Our sprawl is pretty much contained to a mile or two beyond 270 then it gets pretty rural/small town.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Urbanboi: I wouldn’t say that more area is “why we have more people”. I’d say that we have more people because we have more jobs here. Nationwide, JPMC, Honda, Cardinal Health and OSU are all big employers and their jobs attract people here.
CCR: Yep, at least in Columbus you can drive 25 minutes and get to countryside. I don’t think that’s possible in Cinci or Cleveland. Dayton you can go west and get out of town, but only if you know where to go. Akron/Canton are almost suburbs of Cleveland.
March 10th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Yes, while the main reason for Columbus’ growth is because the city has annexed land. And yes its unhealthy growth… But, It has made the city proper more populated, which has increased the tax base for the city, and moved Columbus to the top of the lists of largest cities in the U.S. This makes the city more eligible for federal money for projects and whatnot. It has definitely helped the city grow and compete with other cities. Now, Columbus just has to start focusing growth in the center. :)
March 12th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
To state that in 1810 that 99% of Ohio’s population was white is, at minimum, disingenuous and at worst, completely racist. The CRP report dismissively accounts for the Native American population in Ohio at the time with one sentence: “The 1810 data for Ohio do not include a count for Native Americans because none were taxable resident, a criterion for inclusion in the 1810 Census”. That is it. No further statistics, statement, estimates or consideration. Although this report is focused on comparing 200 years of Census data, to make such an insensitive, purposeful and dismissive omission about the people who held this land sacred for thousands of years prior to the genocidal theft of Ohio is a blatant disregard for accuracy.
Admittedly, historic Native American population data is not easy to obtain. However, on a quick trip to the Columbus Library, I was able to uncover enough data to make educated estimates on Native American populations in Ohio at the turn of the 19th century. Most population data comes in the form of battle counts. For example, during the turn of the 19th century Battle of Fallen Timbers, 2,000 warriors from the Delewares, Shawnee, Wyandots, Ottowas and Miamis participated (source: The Indian In Ohio by H.C. Shetrone). If it were assumed that this number accounted for, say, 50% of all adult males of warrior age, that figure could be applied to figure #3 in the CRP report and a total estimated population could be extrapolated. In this exceptionally conservative example, this would mean Native Americans would have accounted for 10% to 15% of the total Ohio population in 1810. That figure was likely significantly higher and I’m certain that someone spending more than the 15 minutes I spent researching this could provide a far more accurate estimate.
The history of Ohio did not start when the white thieves appeared on the land as this “99% of Ohioans were white” suggests. The years of occupation are only a tear drop in the history of Ohio.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Yeah, if you look at things like Metropolitan population, which includes suburbs, I’m sure Cleveland is still tops.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Back then working age was considered 14+