Growing & Moving

The U.S. Constitution provided for a census every ten years to apportion members of the House of Representatives among the states according to population. Since the founding fathers got the idea, the ten-year nose count has come to govern a whole range of basic decisions--a state's claim on the Federal Government for matching funds, a city's claim on the state for tax revenue, a government's projection of the size of its future public services, and even U.S. business guesses about the size and location of markets. Last week the national dials spun like taxi meters as the preliminary figures for the 1960 census showed that the U.S. population has risen by 28 million in ten years (a vigorous 18.6% growth rate) to an estimated total of 179.5 million.

The big four among the states (see map) are still New York (up 12% but due to lose three Congressmen because the increase does not match the national average), Pennsylvania (up 7%, due to lose three), California (up 47%, due to gain eight) and Illinois (up 15%, due to lose one). Fastest-growing Florida (up 77%) jumped from 20th to tenth state to win four new House seats.

With the shift in state populations came a sweeping decline in urban populations. Most major U.S. cities lost citizens to the suburbs, but none wanted to admit it. San Francisco schoolchildren skipped home carrying little white slips of paper urging parents to "get counted" if they had missed the census. New York City's tabloids carried coupons for uncounted citizens to fill in and mail. Cleve land city fathers dispatched building inspectors to ferret out anyone who might have slipped by the federal census takers.

More than civic pride is at stake in the dwindling city count. As a city's population drops, so does its share of the state and federal tax revenue. San Francisco stands to lose up to $2,000,000 in tax kickbacks because other California cities have grown so fast that they will get bigger portions from the tax pot. New York City figures to lose $1,350,000 in state tax income because it slipped by 242,000 to 7,650,000. Sign of the times: most of what New York loses will go to suburban Nassau and Suffolk counties, whose combined count has more than doubled in the past decade to 1,952,000.

As surrounding Cook "County soared by some 500,000 to this year's 5,000,000, Chicago slipped by some 150,000 to 3,471,000. Detroit fell by 171,000 to 1,679,000; Cleveland was down 43,000 to 871,000;

St. Louis lost 92,000, down to 765,000; Cincinnati slipped 16,000 to 488,000. Some middle-sized cities expanded by annexation, such as Kansas City, Mo. (up 12,000 to 468.000) and Columbus, Ohio (up 89,000 to 465,000).

The only growing city among the nation's top ten was third-ranked Los Angeles, up from 1,970,000 to 2,452,000, but Los Angeles County expanded twice as rapidly, from 4,152,000 to 6,020,000, to overhaul Chicago's Cook County as the nation's second biggest metropolitan area (after the New York area's 14.6 million). Other gainers were cities that still have space for suburban-type living in town, such as Atlanta (up 47% to 487,000) and Tampa (up 117% to 271,000).

Progress--in industry, technology and economics--helps explain America's migrations in the past decade. Industries moved West and South, and people flocked after on newly constructed cross-country superhighways. Construction of city expressways cleared away chunks of urban residential areas, made it easier for people to commute. And rising family incomes (up from an average $4,440 in 1950 to more than $6,500 in 1960) enabled more and more U.S. cityfolk to move out to the suburbs (TIME cover, June 20).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.