Census

A census is a periodic enumeration of people, the value of their property, and other general characteristics of a country. Historically, it was a way for leaders to assess how many men could be mobilized for war and how much property could be taxed. The first U.S. census was taken in 1790, under the direction of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, for the purpose of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives to the original 13 states. The U.S. Constitution mandated that Congress conduct a census every 10 years to collect information needed to reapportion Congress and to gauge the state of the nation. The practice of taking a census spread across Europe during the[Page 31] 19th century and then spread to the rest of the world after World War II.

The census provides a wealth of spatially referenced data. The provision of universal coverage—that everyone in a specified territory is counted and described—enables geographers to map the population and its characteristics comprehensively. The census's periodic quality allows analysis over both time and space. Census data are used widely to monitor income and poverty levels of a population, to locate medical services, to design transportation systems, and to track the changing skill levels of the labor force. Despite their usefulness in public policymaking, decennial census data become increasingly outdated as the decade progresses and spatial detail is sometimes sacrificed to meet census confidentiality provisions.

Although censuses often are depicted as “objective” sources of information, it is increasingly clear that there are limits to this objectivity. It is nearly impossible to count every member of a population, especially in a large, diverse, and constantly moving population. It was just such a challenge that led in 1980 to the idea of a postenumeration survey by the U.S. census to adjust the head count based on the known undercount of urban minorities and the known overcount of suburban whites. However, partisan politics interfered. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited the use of sampling for apportionment, and the U.S. Bureau of the Census decided not to adjust the 2000 census for redistricting purposes.

The taking of a national census is an expression of national identity—this is who we are as a people. The organization of people into categories reflects a resolve among elites to set boundaries and develop cultural identities within the larger group—to distinguish among peoples, religions, languages, and regions. Racial and ethnic classification systems derive from and reinforce race and ethnicity as sources of group identity. Groups that advocated for the opportunity to choose two or more races in the 2000 census justified it with the language of social identity. Although civil rights enforcement favors a small number of categories, a growing multiracial society requires a larger number for choice, self-expression, and cultural identity.