I cannot tell you how pleased I was to see everyone who responded to my postcard and showed up on Saturday morning. I hope that everyone who attended had a good time. I know that I completely enjoyed our morning together.
For those who couldn't make it, don't worry… we're planning to host another breakfast in about six months. Next time, we'd like to double the number of people in attendance. :-)
For those of you who weren't able to attend, here's how we organized the gathering. After everyone had an opportunity to get little breakfast, I shared some information with the group and then opened the floor for comments, ideas, suggestions and questions.
I got a literal *ton* of great feedback from everyone who attended. Thanks!
I'm still collating and summarizing all of that feedback and I plan to print a report in an upcoming blog post very soon.
Today, however, I'm going to share some of the information that I presented to the group on Saturday along with a few of my thoughts, observations and questions about that information.
It's a lot of material and it makes for a long blog post, but I encourage you to stick with me. Interesting stuff coming...
District 2
First of all, as a reminder, the boundaries of District 2 are roughly State Line on the east to 18th Street on the west and State Avenue on the north to the Kansas River on the south. Here's a map.
Here's a map of District 2.
Click to enlarge and see street names.
Population
I looked at census data from 1990, 2000 and 2010 to try to get a sense of who we are and where we're going. Here is some of what I found.
(Disclaimer – All of the data on this page were gathered by me from census documents. These data are accurate to the best of my knowledge and to the best of my ability to interpret and extract data from census tables, charts and reports. Any errors are unintentional.)
The total population in District 2 in 2010 was 19,980. That's about the same as 1990 and higher than 2000. I think this is good because it shows that people are coming back to the district. Woohoo!
Although the total population has stayed the same, the data suggests that we've gotten a little younger over the last 20 years. In the graph below I collapsed all the age group data into "17 and under" and "18 and over". Compared to 1990, there are a few hundred more people "17 and under" and a few hundred fewer people "18 and over".
This suggests to me that younger families with younger children are moving into our neighborhoods. If that's the case, then we need to go out of our way to welcome those new families to our community and help them get settled so that they are good neighbors for years to come.
The biggest eye opener comes when we look at how the ethnicity of the district has changed over the last 20 years. There has been a large increase in the Hispanic population (of any race) and a somewhat proportional decrease in the non-Hispanic population.
Again, this suggests to me that we have new people moving in from outside of the district. We must meet these new folks, welcome them and help them get settled in our neighborhoods so that they are encouraged to help make our district a great place to live, work and play.
Household Income
It's really important to remember that "median" is not the same as "average". The median is the value that's halfway between the biggest and the smallest. A median value of $28,392 means that we are definitely not an affluent district overall. However, the 2010 value is higher than the 2000 value, so we are moving in the right direction! We need to keep supporting local businesses and helping them find new and better ways to hire our residents into better paying jobs.
Housing
The median value of an "owner-occupied" house in District 2 was $62,648 in 2010. Again, this is median, not average, so there are a lot of houses in our district that have a pretty low appraised value.
My first thought when I saw the number was, "Yikes, that's too low!", but then our UG "data guy" Mike Grimm told me that the median value of an owner-occupied house in District 2 had actually increased 120% from 2000 to 2010.
WOW!
That suggests two things to me: 1) we're tearing down old and low value houses (see below); and 2) public, private and not-for-profit agencies that build and/or rehabilitate housing units are making excellent progress in raising the quality and the value of the housing stock in our neighborhoods. We're not where we want to be, but we're on the way.
The next graph shows the total number of housing units and compares occupied against vacant. The total number of housing units in District 2 is lower today than it was in 1990. I think that this reflects the demolition of a lot of older and unlivable housing units.
 |
| American Community Survey (2006-2010) |
Getting rid of junk housing is great, but here's what I don't like...
We've lost housing units overall which means that we're tearing down junk faster than we're building new. That can't continue.
Also of concern to me is that this graph shows we still have about 1,400 vacant housing units in 2010. Since vacant houses are often eyesores and seem to be magnets for people who are up to no good, we must lower that number by fixing up those properties and putting people in them.
Finally, in 2010 the number of rental units in District 2 grew larger than the number of "owner-occupied" units for the first time in recent history.
 |
| American Community Survey (2006-2010) |
The increase in rental units makes sense if you think about how bad the economy has been the last few years. Many families have decided that it's better to rent than to own until the economy improves.
However, we need to make sure that renters are protected from bad landlords who just take rent money and don't re-invest in properties and we need to make sure that landlords are protected from bad renters who don't pay rent and/or ruin property. I'm also concerned that absentee landlords who don't live anywhere near our community don't have an incentive to make our neighborhoods the best on earth.
So...there you have it. The background information I presented to everyone who attended our breakfast on August 25. Interesting stuff. Click either of the links below to share your thoughts, ideas and perspectives with me.
Coming next...my thoughts about the 2013 Unified Government budget. You don't want to miss that! :-)
~ Brian
bmckiernan@wycokck.org
- or -
Suggestion Box
