censusmap

AT THE VERY TOP OF THIS PAGE is a U.S. Census 2000 map of the census tracts and block groups in Weston, CT. In yellow is the census block group for an address in the northern part of Town. NOTE: there are two census tracts in Weston (551 and 552). In each tract there are three census block groups. More detail is available for smaller units--blocks--not shown here, but in Weston, census geography gets complicated, as lines are draw from tree to tree (a slight exageration)...below is a sample table, courtesy of the South Western Regional Planning Agency's data guy, no longer working at SWRPA.


Sample Population Density Query
SUMLEV	NAME	AREALAND	Area (sq mi)	Population	Population Density
060	Weston town	51278488	19.7987357470382	10037	506.95156136429
070	Georgetown CDP (part)	420758	0.162455578944767	144	886.396151707157
080	Census Tract 551 (part)	420758	0.162455578944767	144	886.396151707157
085	Urban	420758	0.162455578944767	144	886.396151707157
090	Block Group 1 (part)	420758	0.162455578944767	144	886.396151707157
070	Remainder of Weston town	50857730	19.6362801680934	9893	503.812326739711
080	Census Tract 551 (part)	34180165	13.1970360480435	5528	418.881935297855
085	Rural	16543324	6.38741337797704	1182	185.051433194441
090	Block Group 1 (part)	16543324	6.38741337797704	1182	185.051433194441
085	Urban	17636841	6.80962267006642	4346	638.214510637137
090	Block Group 1 (part)	10232179	3.9506665667949	2478	627.235925407482
090	Block Group 2	4473417	1.7271960333407	1199	694.188717930835
090	Block Group 3	2931245	1.13176006993083	669	591.114687445096
080	Census Tract 552	16677565	6.43924412004998	4365	677.874595002328
085	Rural	59212	2.28618819855536E-02	0	0
090	Block Group 1 (part)	59212	2.28618819855536E-02	0	0
085	Urban	16618353	6.41638223806442	4365	680.28989515387
090	Block Group 1 (part)	5562466	2.14768022091222	1360	633.241386104652
090	Block Group 2	3330853	1.28604958787454	989	769.021668623623
090	Block Group 3	7725034	2.98265242927766	2016	675.908456584139
140	Census Tract 551	34600923	13.3594916269882	5672	424.567053774837
150	Block Group 1	27196261	10.5005355237167	3804	362.267237838319
150	Block Group 2	4473417	1.7271960333407	1199	694.188717930835
150	Block Group 3	2931245	1.13176006993083	669	591.114687445096
140	Census Tract 552	16677565	6.43924412004998	4365	677.874595002328
150	Block Group 1	5621678	2.17054210289777	1360	626.571582363842
150	Block Group 2	3330853	1.28604958787454	989	769.021668623623
150	Block Group 3	7725034	2.98265242927766	2016	675.908456584139
158	Census Tract 551 (part)	420758	0.162455578944767	144	886.396151707157
393	Weston town	51278488	19.7987357470382	10037	506.95156136429
397	Weston town	51278488	19.7987357470382	10037	506.95156136429
441	Weston town (part)	34675952	13.3884604870756	8855	661.390456994519
451	Georgetown CDP (part)	420758	0.162455578944767	144	886.396151707157
451	Remainder of Weston town (part)	34255194	13.2260049081308	8711	658.626702508239
511	Census Tract 551	34600923	13.3594916269882	5672	424.567053774837
511	Census Tract 552	16677565	6.43924412004998	4365	677.874595002328
521	Weston town	51278488	19.7987357470382	10037	506.95156136429

Fixing the Census
NYTIMES
By Alan B. Krueger (Alan B. Krueger is an economics professor at Princeton).
January 26, 2009, 6:31 am

Serious problems in the planning for the 2010 census have been in the news lately. The census has fallen well behind schedule because of technology glitches, and as a result the Government Accountability Office has listed the population count as one of the 13 urgent issues requiring immediate attention in the first year of the new presidential administration, up there with homeland security and Iraq. Without urgent action to prepare and test survey procedures, the 2010 census will miss more people than the 2000 census...full story here.

Data Show Steady Drop in Americans on Move
NYTIMES
By SAM ROBERTS
December 21, 2008

Despite the nation’s reputation as a rootless society, only about one in 10 Americans moved in the last year — roughly half the proportion that changed residences as recently as four decades ago, census data show.

The monthly Current Population Survey found that fewer than 12 percent of Americans moved since 2007, a decline of nearly a full percentage point compared with the year before. In the 1950s and ’60s, the number of movers hovered near 20 percent. The number has been declining steadily, and 12 percent is the lowest rate since the Census Bureau began counting people who move in 1940. An analysis by the Pew Research Center attributes the decline to a number of factors, including the aging of the population (older people are less likely to change residences) and an increase in two-career couples.

The Pew analysis is drawn from census data and a survey, which found that 63 percent of Americans said they had moved to another community at least once in their lives, while 37 percent said they lived in the community where they were born.

According to the census’s American Community Survey, New York retained first place in the proportion of residents who were born in the state — more than 81 percent — with upstaters generally less mobile. The top five also included Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, generally Rust Belt states with older populations.

In contrast, fewer than 14 percent of Nevadans and 28 percent of Arizonans were born in those states.

Measuring the percentage of people born in a state who still live there, Texas ranked first, with nearly 76 percent, followed by North Carolina, Georgia, California and Wisconsin. Alaska recorded the smallest share of people born in the state and still living there, 28 percent, followed by Wyoming, the Dakotas and Montana.

The telephone survey of 2,260 adults in October found that 57 percent had never moved outside their home state, while 15 percent had lived in four or more states.

About 23 percent say their current home is not where their heart is — typically because they were born someplace else, where they lived longer or their family still resides. About half who identify home as someplace else want to stay put; 40 percent say they would like to return. Most people who do not move are kept close to home by family ties, the survey found, while most who do move are drawn by better jobs. The Pew survey found that among all foreign-born adults, including recent arrivals, 38 percent describe home as their country of birth.

Among those who have lived in the United States 20 years or more, 76 percent describe America as home.

Population loss is threat to our state
Stamford ADVOCATE
Staff Reports
Article Launched: 07/12/2008 02:39:30 AM EDT

Get ready for some competitive congressional races in Connecticut soon after the 2020 Census. That's the time officials say the state is likely to lose one of its five remaining U.S. House seats - we originally had six - and with it one of its seven electoral votes.

The state showed growth over the past year that could charitably be called "anemic." The population rose 0.19 percent in the past year, the equivalent of adding about 6,500 people. In a state of almost 3.5 million, that's almost like going backward.

A multigenerational trend is emptying out the Northeast and filling up the West, specifically places like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada. Those states stand to pick up the congressional seats, and the national clout, that Connecticut and its neighbors appear on track to lose.

None of this is a surprise. However, it was only recently that Connecticut had six seats in the House, losing one after the 2000 Census. To drop another one so soon would no doubt increase pessimism about our state's economic viability.

Officials like Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the mayors of Stamford and Norwalk challenged the idea that Connecticut is in a downward spiral, saying the state and its cities are either holding their own or poised for a comeback. Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy said an increase in housing stock has his city on a path for population growth. Mayor Richard Moccia, meanwhile, said the same of Norwalk's redevelopment plans.

But the nationwide mortgage crisis has put a serious crimp in the state's housing market.

The reasons for the statewide lack of growth are legion, but not easy to change. Connecticut is expensive, for people and businesses. There's little to keep young people here. The weather is nice for a few months, but why settle for that when you can get year-round sun? If we're not careful, the Land of Steady Habits will become the Land of Rich and Old People. Most of the places in Connecticut where people would like to live - i.e., in close proximity New York City - are far out of reach for most people wishing to buy a home, or even obtain an affordable rental unit. In much of our region, the housing slump has not caused a significant reduction in average home prices.

The warning signs for Connecticut are there. No one will be able to say we didn't see it coming. But time is running short to take effective action to halt if not reverse these trends. Job retention and creation must be a major focus involving cooperative efforts by state and local officials. That should include a rigorous review of state taxing policies, as well as the state spending that drives them. Affordable housing, a topic that produces a lot of talk but little progress, needs to be confronted too.

Connecticut ignores these concerns at its economic and political peril.

Estimate from State Data Center at UCONN...
Growth stalls in the state
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Kate King, Special Correspondent
Article Launched: 07/11/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

Fairfield County saw a small increase in population despite a drop statewide, according to census figures released yesterday.

Stamford, Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien and Westport all saw minor increases, according to the data. Norwalk posted a decline of 0.1 percent. But the statewide picture isn't promising, experts say, pointing to a shrinking work force, loss of jobs, an aging population and a potential reduction in state representation in Washington, D.C.

"This population growth is consistent with our slow growth in the recent past," said Lisa Mercurio, director of the Business Council of Fairfield County. "New England as a whole has been growing more slowly than the rest of the U.S."

The population in Connecticut rose 0.19 percent over the last year, according to the census data. Connecticut's population growth is the eighth lowest in the nation, according the report. Nevada had the highest growth rate since 2006 at 2.9 percent, and Rhode Island had the lowest at minus 0.36 percent.

Within Connecticut, Milford's population grew the most, by 532 people. Bridgeport showed the biggest population decline, losing 252 people over the past year.

Though 35 percent of the state's 169 towns declined in population, Fairfield County's population grew 0.1 percent. Stamford and Darien's population grew by 0.1 percent, and Greenwich and Westport grew by 0.4 percent. New Canaan's population increased by 0.5 percent.

Local leaders remained optimistic. Despite the city's losses, Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia said the city's redevelopment plans put Norwalk on a course toward growth.

"From a statistical point of view, in my mind it's virtually no loss whatsoever, so I'm not worried," he said. "I don't see this as a threat to our economic viability. I think with our new development projects in place, with more affordable housing going in down the road, you might see an increase in population."

Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy painted an equally bright picture, estimating a 10-year growth rate of 6 percent for the city, coming from an increase in housing stock. Malloy also suspected that the census counts miss some of the city's population.

"As much as I think these reports are interesting. . . . I respectfully would argue that it probably undercounts our immigrant population," Malloy said.

The slow statewide growth comes on the heels of a population boom, which lasted from 1995 to 2003, said Orlando Rodriguez, demographer and manager of the Connecticut State Data Center. The population growth during those eight years was abnormal, a reaction to the end of a deep economic recession that took place in Connecticut from 1990 to 1995.

The population growth rate that Connecticut has experienced since 2004 is "more normal, looking forward, than what happened between 1995 and 2003," Rodriguez said. But the return to normal of Connecticut's population growth rate isn't necessarily a good thing for the state.

"One of the things that's concerning us is that we're seeing a decline in population in urban areas, which is counter to what we had expected," he said.

A declining urban population means a smaller work force to replace the growing elderly population in the state, Rodriguez said. Connecticut has one of the nation's oldest populations, meaning a high number of senior citizens.

Before the 2007 census, demographers had projected a job loss of 60,000 workers by the year 2030, he said. However, if urban areas continue to lose population, that worker loss will be even greater. Also contributing to the slow growth rate in Connecticut is a net loss of population to other states.

"We send more people to other states than we get from other states," Rodriguez said. "You've got a lot of elderly people, not a lot of children being born, and folks leaving - it's lucky Connecticut has any population growth at all."

The only reason Connecticut has not dipped into negative population growth is the 15,000 foreign immigrants who have been coming to the state yearly since 2004. In addition to contributing to a decline in the work force, slow population growth could cut Connecticut's representation in Congress.

"By 2020 we will lose a congressional seat," Rodriguez said. "For 2010, we'll probably be OK unless the bottom really falls out and Connecticut goes into major population loss."

Although Connecticut will most likely remain a five-district state for the next 12 years, uneven population growth within the districts will probably force a redrawing of the districts before then, he said.

2010 Census: Who Should Count?
By MICHAEL REGAN | Courant Staff Writer
September 30, 2007

Border states in America's South and West are battlegrounds in the debate over illegal immigration, but when it's time to pass out seats in Congress, they are beneficiaries as well, a new study says.

Because of their large populations of undocumented residents, Texas and Arizona will each get one extra seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2010 Census, the Connecticut State Data Center projects in a report being released today. California will keep two seats it otherwise would have lost.

Overall, the South and West each stand to gain five seats in the House, the center at the University of Connecticut says. If it weren't for their populations of illegal immigrants, each of these regions would gain only three.

The big loser in the reapportionment will be the Midwest, the center says. Five states in that region are projected to lose a total of six seats, four more than they would have if illegal immigrants were not included in the census tally.

Connecticut, which lost a seat in the last reapportionment, should keep the five it now has, but the Northeast as a whole will lose four - two in New York and one each in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

There's more than congressional clout at stake in the reapportionment: It also helps determine the makeup of the Electoral College. And the census itself influences everything from federal aid to the makeup of state legislatures. So as the 2010 Census approaches, attention is turning to the issue of whether it's fair to continue counting illegal immigrants.

Orlando J. Rodriguez, manager of the Connecticut State Data Center and author of the new report, considered that issue when designing the study. He figured the reapportionment two ways - one in which all residents are counted, as is currently done, and one in which illegal immigrants are factored out. Although politics watchers have been handicapping the 2010 reapportionment almost since 2000 was completed, Rodriguez said this is the first study he knows of to factor in the immigration question.

In part, the shift expected in 2010 is the result of a long-term population trend that has states in the South and West growing far faster than states in the Northeast and Midwest. In the 1960s, the Northeast and Midwest had 233 seats in the House, the South and West 202. The numbers roughly reversed two decades later, and now stand at 183 to 252. The new CSDC report projects that the South and West will have 262 seats to 173 for the Northeast and Midwest after 2010.

The winners and losers don't fall strictly along regional lines. New Jersey, for example, with the highest proportion of undocumented workers in the Northeast, would lose one seat if illegal residents were not counted, according to the CSDC projection. Montana would gain a seat if they weren't counted. Louisiana, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, is expected to lose a seat regardless.

The new report suggests that the country's illegal immigrant population is playing an increasing role in congressional apportionment. After the 2000 Census, an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies found that illegal immigrant populations affected the apportionment of four seats. The CSDC report projects that six seats will be affected by undocumented residents after 2010.

The projections are based on the most reliable data available, Rodriguez said, but studying the undocumented residents population is imprecise at best.

"Nobody really knows for sure," he said. "The bottom line is not `Is this specifically going to happen?' What I was trying to get across is, `Look at the impact [illegal immigration] is having.'"

Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the impact is cause for concern. "You can make a strong case that there is a fundamental unfairness about this," Camarota said. "You do raise competing questions of fairness, justice, one man-one vote."

Counting illegal immigrants gives some voters disproportionate political clout. For example, Montana, which missed out on an additional seat after 2000 because of the weight of illegal immigrants elsewhere and is projected to fall short again after 2010, had almost 650,000 registered voters last November and one representative in Congress.

By contrast, California, which would lose two of its 53 seats after 2010 if illegal immigrants weren't counted, according to the projections, has four districts each with fewer than 200,000 voters registered. One district has fewer than 170,000 voters.

"You can win election [to Congress] in California with less than 50,000 votes," Camarota said.

But that's beside the point, said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The size of the electorate has nothing to do with representation in Congress.

Members of Congress "are elected to represent constituents. They don't just represent citizens," Vargas said. "They don't just represent the people who vote for them. They represent everybody in that congressional district."

Vargas said the framers of the Constitution drew distinctions among various classes of residents at various points. When it came to apportioning seats in Congress, he said, everyone was counted - although slaves were only counted as three-fifths of a person. "Would we go back to a time when we considered a person here to be less than human, less than a whole person?" he said.

At a time when illegal immigration in general is under heightened scrutiny, its connection to the census and reapportionment is likely to get renewed attention. One question that has already come up is how immigration enforcement might affect the count.

In 2000, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service suspended raids before and after the census so as not to deter undocumented residents from responding. Earlier this year, when a census official raised the possibility of a similar freeze in 2010, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement firmly ruled out the possibility.

Camarota and Vargas agreed that the question of what ICE does in 2010 depends on who is elected president in 2008.

"Under the unlikely circumstance that the Republicans win and they institute a comprehensive enforcement strategy, who knows?" Camarota said. "It could reduce the number of illegals significantly, and it could reduce the response rate."

But Vargas said the Constitution charges the government with counting everyone in the census.

"So the federal government needs to have some common sense about what its other agencies are doing that is going to compromise its constitutional duty to enumerate all persons," he said.

The other question is whether there will be renewed efforts to keep undocumented residents - or all noncitizens - out of the reapportionment count. Anti-illegal immigrant groups and states losing representation have been unsuccessful in court over the issue in the past, and Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan, which lost one seat after 2000 and is projected to lose another after 2010, has proposed a constitutional amendment to limit the reapportionment count to citizens.

Margo J. Anderson, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of several books and papers on the census and reapportionment, said it's hardly a new question.

"It's an old issue. It goes back to 1790," she said. "Every time there is in some sense a political crisis in the country or a sectional dispute, the communities that think they're not going to gain from it take a hard look at it and wonder whether the rules are fair."

Connecticut's population topped 3.5 million people for the first time in 2004, with the state adding nearly as many people during the past four years as it added during the entire 1990s, the U.S. Census Bureau is reporting today.

Relative to the previous three years, Connecticut's growth slowed this past year, but the state still added more people than any of its New England neighbors and more even than much larger New York state, according to the new population estimates.

The nearly 100,000 people that the Census Bureau estimates that Connecticut added between 2000 and 2004 is only 18,000 below the state's population growth between 1990 and 2000, when Connecticut was one of the nation's slowest growing states.

During the first three years of the decade, between July 2000 and July 2003, the state added more than 20,000 people each year. The Census Bureau said that growth moderated during the past year, as Connecticut added roughly 16,600 people, a 0.5 percent gain, between July 2003 and July 2004.

That population growth compared to 14,600 people in New York and 4,500 in Rhode Island. Massachusetts lost about 4,000 people, making it the only state to suffer a population decline last year, according to the estimates.

"Connecticut doesn't look like the rest of New England," said Orlando Rodriguez, a demographic researcher at the Center for Population Research at the University of Connecticut. "It's not. It's more like New Jersey."

Connecticut's gains, however, were a fraction of those in the fastest growing states; Nevada added about 92,000 people in the past year, growing by 4.1 percent, the fastest percentage growth in the nation.

Connecticut's population gains are being driven by the strong growth among Latinos and Asians, who together are accounting for much of the state's growth, census estimates released earlier this year show. Their gains are likely a combination of people migrating to Connecticut from abroad and from other states, particularly the New York City area, as well as births in Connecticut, experts say.

"Connecticut seems to be geographically a good place [for Asians] because it is close to New York," said Angela Rola, director of the Asian-American Cultural Center at UConn.

Aspects of that growth include the migration of ethnic Chinese to southeastern Connecticut casino jobs; Asian Indians drawn to Hartford County by medical and high-tech jobs, and Filipinos being attracted by health care jobs and the military, Rola said.

Less clear within the state's new population total was the meaning - and perhaps the accuracy - of the new federal estimates.

In general, a growing population is good news for a state's economy, reflecting the perception that there is economic opportunity in the places attracting people, and fueling economic growth. But the census estimates, which show solid population growth during the same years that the state is down 54,000 jobs, also raise a thorny question:

"We can't have a declining labor force and a growing population. Generally, those two wouldn't go together," said Ron Van Winkle, a West Hartford economist.

Van Winkle said that during the 1990s, the Census Bureau's population estimates - a statistical model based on births, deaths and migration data - turned out to be lower than the actual population the agency counted in the 2000 Census. Most economic data, he said, suggest the bureau's estimates could be off the mark again, this time in the opposite direction.

"Most of the things you look at suggest a population that is more stable, with small growth in it, rather than one that would suggest robust growth," Van Winkle said.

With the oldest of the Baby Boomers approaching retirement, whatever population growth Connecticut is enjoying now may not last, said Edward J. Deak, an economics professor at Fairfield University.

"I just don't see a lot of reason for Connecticut even to be in the middle of the pack [among states] in terms of population growth," Deak said.

By percentage, New Hampshire remained the fastest growing New England state, adding about 11,000 people last year, a 0.8 percent jump - many of them apparently former Massachusetts residents, experts said.

Migration to neighboring New Hampshire and Rhode Island is one cause of the population loss in Massachusetts, said Steve Coelen, the former director of the Massachusetts Institute for Social & Economic Research.

Officials in northeastern Connecticut also say they have noted an influx of people from Greater Boston seeking lower housing prices south of the border.

That migration, along with a slow economy and the tightening of visa restrictions after 9/11 that may make it tougher for foreign students to enroll in Massachusetts universities, are all driving the Bay State's population drop, Coelen said.

Rodriguez, the UConn population researcher, said Connecticut is more like New Jersey than other New England states because it has cities such as Hartford with intense poverty, and because of the more diverse ethnic and immigrant mix of two more-urbanized states.

One worrisome fact the Center for Population Research uncovered in its analysis of the 2000 Census was that much of Connecticut's population growth was coming in poorer "urban periphery" towns such as Manchester and East Hartford.

If that growth among poor people has continued in the current decade, it's not good news, Rodriguez said.

"People may say that [population growth] means we're growing economically," he said. "Not necessarily. It could be a bad indicator."

Statistics Suggest Problems In Future For Connecticut; Glimpse of state's population in 2030 shows aging, segregation
DAY
By Karin Crompton
Published on 5/16/2007

For the next 25 years, Connecticut's population will keep getting older and more segregated, a state data center concludes in projections released today.

The state will have fewer working-age people to support the glut of baby boomers who will retire, and the state's minorities will continue to be concentrated in a handful of urban areas while the rest of Connecticut remains predominantly white.

Also, if not for an influx of foreign-born immigrants — other than Hispanics — the state's population would shrink rather than grow. The state's population growth, the center reports, is ranked among the lowest in the country and puts the state at risk of losing seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“The baby boomers didn't have enough kids to support them in retirement, is what it boils down to,” said Orlando Rodriguez, manager of the Connecticut State Data Center, which released the projections today. “We need to make up the shortfall somewhere.”

The Connecticut State Data Center, created in 2006, serves as a liaison to the U.S. Census Bureau. The state uses the data to create public policy and to decide where to spend money.

Rodriguez, who said the information should ideally be published every three to five years, said the information was previously collected by the state Office of Policy and Management, which outsourced the job to the Center. The population projections haven't been updated in 12 years.

The Center uses a figure called a “dependency ratio” that takes 100 workers and calculates how many people are dependent upon them. There is a ratio for children and one for the elderly (those over 65).

The combination of the two is called a “total dependency” ratio. In Connecticut, that number is projected to rise from 67 people dependent upon every 100 workers in 2005 to 96 for every 100 in 2030.

Rodriguez looked up some figures for southeastern Connecticut.

“Whoa!” he yelped over the phone, clicking on the town of Lyme. Its total dependency ratio is projected to reach 110 by 2030 — every 100 working people in Lyme will have to support 110 retirees.

But these are statistics, after all.

“This is a wealthy retirement community, so that may not mean anything,” he said.

Overall, the state is projected to gain just three new residents for every 1,000 existing residents annually until 2030. Locally, the numbers foretell much the same. New London County's total population is projected to grow at a rate of 0.02 percent by 2030, down from 0.20 percent in 2005.

Some of the more startling projections include:

• Sprague's median age, which was 43.2 in 2005, will climb to 65.9 in 2030

• Waterford's population drops from 18,303 in 2005 to 16,758 in 2030.

• East Lyme, considered a hub for 55-and-older housing, is projected to see a decrease in the population's median age, from 43 in 2005 to 40.7 in 2030.

Rodriguez is quick to point out that the projections are different from predictions.

“We look at the past and we do not take into account anything that will happen in the future,” he said. “It's not an economic forecast — if the (sub) base closes, they put in an Ikea, build 100 houses ... It's not like that.”

Rodriguez said the data represents “one scenario. This may happen, not that it will happen.”

•••••

The Center groups the state's 169 municipalities into five categories: rural, suburban, urban core, urban periphery and wealthy. The definitions for each category come from a combination of population density (people per square mile), median family income and the percentage of the population that falls under the poverty threshold.

Rodriguez concedes that the classifications are dated and need updating. He said they were done three or four years ago and are based on information from the 2000 Census.

That could explain why East Lyme is grouped in the rural category while Salem falls into suburban. Rodriguez looked up the figures and said East Lyme's population density is too low to be categorized as suburban and its income is too high for the rural classification.

“You could say it's in transition,” he said.

New London is the only southeastern Connecticut city classified as an urban center. Norwich and Groton are both considered urban periphery. Extremely high population density is the primary characteristic for the category, according to the Center.

While race was not used to determine categories, the Center concludes that the state's minorities are most concentrated in the urban centers, or “urban core” towns.

While the urban core classification accounted for 19 percent of the state's population in 2000, the Center reports, more than half of the state's blacks and Hispanics lived there. At the same time, more than half of the state's white population lived in towns that were at least 90 percent white.

Statewide in 2000, 78 percent of towns were at least 90 percent white.

“I think one of the leading misconceptions is that Connecticut is a racially diverse state,” said Rodriguez, who moved here from New Orleans in 2002. “People say a quarter of the population is minorities and it's the same nationwide. That may be true, but that quarter is limited to seven towns in the state. So our minorities are segregated.”

The population projections can be seen at ctsdc.uconn.edu/Projections-Towns/townList-css.html.

The town listings by category can be seen at http://www.ctsdc.uconn.edu/Projections-Towns/groups_5CTs.html

The calculations and assumptions that form the basis for these population projections are drawn from historical patterns of population change. Thus, these projections reveal how populations may evolve over the next twenty-five years - if these historical patterns continue to hold true. However, there is no guarantee that the projected trends will occur. A host of external influences, such as public policy initiatives at the state and federal levels or significant shifts in economic structure, may lead to new patterns of change in the population.