When T-Mobile was searching for a location to build a call center in 2006, the company hired Dallas-based The Staubach Co. to handle site selection.
While officials from the city and the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce made numerous presentations to lure the company, it was basic information about area population that first caught T-Mobile's eye.
"Those companies have to know that we have the labor resources and the right demographics to meet their work force needs," said Ryan Mooney, the chamber's vice president of business development, who was instrumental in negotiating with the wireless communications company.
While numerous private companies dedicate their time collecting and updating demographic information to provide to cities and businesses, nearly all of their estimates are based on one set of data: the U.S. Census.
The work force
In describing how each state is to be represented in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Constitution says that a count of the population "shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of 10 years."
The next taking of the decennial census doesn't actually begin for another 11 months, with Census Day on April 1, 2010, but preparations in the Ozarks have been under way since late last year.
"We (have hired) about 50 people to work in the Springfield office, basically for full-time positions, and we'll employ those people for roughly a year and a half," said Dennis Johnson, regional director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Johnson's region covers Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Oklahoma.
The full-time staff works out of a Wilhoit Plaza office to cover 19 counties in southwest Missouri. The office also is working to check all the addresses in southern Missouri - 64 counties in all. Once addresses have been verified, each household will receive the questionnaire by March, Census officials said.
Those 50 full-time employees, however, pale in comparison to the roughly 1,000 people who will be hired to canvass neighborhoods in the southwest area's 19-counties collecting data from those who didn't mail in their information. The bureau will begin recruiting those field workers in the fall.
It's uncertain exactly how much the government will spend on the process, Johnson said, mainly because the exact number of field agents required is unpredictable.
"We hope for 100 percent response by mail, but we think we'll get around 70 percent," Johnson said, noting that the projected percentage is slightly higher than the response rate for the 2000 process. "We're basing that assumption on the fact that we're only asking 10 questions - we're not being as detailed as we were in 2000 - and we're putting a lot of effort into informing people about the process and encouraging them to respond."
Knowing the area
While the information gathered through the actual census questionnaires seems simple - name, gender, age and ethnicity - there are nearly as many ways to use the data as there are people being counted.
"The 10-year headcount is basically the benchmark that most groups use ... to determine needs," Johnson said. "Whether it's a business, faith-based organization or social organization, they're looking at the needs of that area."
That information is supplemented by more detailed surveys, covering information such as income levels and employment status, conducted between censuses.
"The more detailed surveys get into assessing more detailed needs - traffic patterns, education programs for adults, employment patterns, professional training needs, even business marketing strategies and where to locate a new business," Johnson said.
Rusty Worley, executive director of Urban Districts Alliance, said the ability to point out the population density of the downtown area - 15,000 people live within a mile of the intersection of Walnut Street and South Avenue, for example - is a big selling point for center city.
He also noted that the downtown area has changed dramatically since the last census. More than 500 lofts and condominiums have been added between downtown and Commercial Street since 2000.
"We see the census as a much more accurate reflection of what growth has been happening, both in residential and commercial development," said Worley, who also serves on the board of the Complete Count committee, which spreads the word about the census effort
The impact of updated information is not lost on chamber VP Mooney, who points out that since nearly all the statistical models use the census as a baseline, having accurate information to build on is vital.
"All of what we have now is estimate data and has a margin of error, but that margin gets wider the farther you get from the census," Mooney said. "So it's crucial that we get accurate data from the census that can get us through the next 10 years."[[In-content Ad]]
