Seriously, Respond to the Census!

Back in May, GM encouraged readers to do their civic duty and respond to the Census. At that point, Georgetown’s response rate was pretty bad, compared with the rest of the country. Georgetowners had responded at a rate of only 51%, compared with 56% percent city-wide response, and a 60% national rate. Now four months later, Georgetowners have made some progress, but time’s running out.

As of yesterday, East Georgetowners had responded at a rate of 58% and 65% (more below on why there are two numbers). West Georgetowners still have only responded at a rate of 54%. Ten years ago, both sides of the neighborhood eventually responded at a rate close to 70%. But you only have until September 30th to self-respond. And this year the Census is curtailing its in-person door-to-door counting. So you may simply not count if you don’t respond.

Sure, Census numbers for DC don’t matter in terms of Congressional representation. But they matter for countless other reasons (including local apportionment.) So do you duty and respond immediately if you haven’t already.

Now for why there are two numbers for east Georgetown: It appears that the Census has created a new Census tract in Georgetown. Before this year, all of east Georgetown was Census Tract 1.00 (whoo-hoo, we’re number one!). But for some reason they decided to split off the furthest east part of east Georgetown and designate it as Census Tract 1.01. The remaining part of the old Census Tract 1.00 is now Tract 1.02.

This will have absolutely no impact on residents, but it will create a minor headache for people like GM who like to use Census data. And it’s a little bit of a bummer (in an extremely dorky way) to no longer have Census Tract 1.00.