Talk:Demographics of the United States

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Contents

[edit] Largest cities population

The list of largest cities have populations that are fairly different, but still within the same ballpark, as those found at other sourcs such as List_of_United_States_cities_by_population. Most notably, Los Angeles is listed as having 4.3+ million people rather than 3.8+ million, and Chicago 3.1+ million instead of 2.8+ million. I could replace those numbers but it's possible that the higher numbers are due to recent estimates or city amalgamations. DisgruntledWaterlooStudent 20:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sikhs are HIndus?

Why are Sikhs considered a subgroup of Hindus?

There are strong links between Sikhism and Hinduism, but also with Sufi Islam and others...

I'm not sure this is an appropriate NPOV categorization, and the original data from the US government does not seem to reflect it, because of what has happened in the early years; the lives of many have been taken and an increase in births has occured;and there is about 6.5% of humans that have come into this world.

[edit] Graph multicolred?

Is there any reason the graph is multicoloured?--Hugh7 23:42, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


I agree, why is it multicolored? The green to red in biased against US growth. Some one find another graph.

[edit] To do:

Ancestry data:

[edit] San Antonio

How did San Antonio drop off the list of the ten most populous cities?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html

[edit] a few fixes

I edited the article to fix a few capitalization errors and to make the Non-hispanic White population numbers more obvious.~Dark357g

[edit] white census

How are Arabs, Hispanics, and North AFricans counted as white? That should be changed. 68.126.232.191 04:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, you do realize that wikipedia doesn't have authority over the CIA to change it, right? If so, then I'm not getting paid enough. Cburnett 03:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Because Arabs, Hispanics, and North Africans ARE white. They're caucasian. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.181.232.197 (talk) 02:06:15, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

What the heel is an hispanic anyway? For example And argentinian of German/Italian parents? An indian from Mexico? or a Black from Dominican R. or Colombia?


Please explain!!!!!!!!!!11

[edit] 300 million date

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Fact-Finder population clock, the U.S. had an estimated population of 298,173,150 at 02:44, 24 Feb 2006 (UTC), and was adding people at about 4.8 per minute. Assuming linear increase (which may be underestimating for even this short a timeframe — I'm not sure how the clock works), we should hit 300,000,000 at 09:58 on November 15, 2006 (UTC). We might set ourselves a reminder to start watching the clock in late October to prepare to update the estimated population to that milestone figure. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure it'll be on the news. Cburnett 03:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Update: as of 17:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC), the clock read 299,793,387 and was increasing at a rate of 6.0/minute. New ETA for 300 million is therefore 15:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC). I'm betting it'll be a bit sooner, too, since the clock rate is increasing slowly. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Here's what should be the last update before the official announcement. With the clock currently running consistently at 5.33 more people per minute for the past 7 days, I project we'll cross 300 million on 17 October 2006 at 11:44 UTC. Since the clock seems to be updated only once every 10 minutes, it may show the crossing as late as 11:54 (allowing for round-off errors). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why are 'White" Americans counted as White? They are not White.

AMERICANS ARE NOT WHITE!!

Americans are not White!!! They could call themselves Martian if they want. So-called "white" Americans, according to their own one-drop rule, are not White and have never been White:

Genetics

In European Americans from State College [in Washington D.C.], the west African and native American genetic contributions are low (0.7% and 3.2%, respectively).

(Shriver et al., Hum Genet, 2003)

As to their European blood, many Europeans are not White either:

The Tat-C haplogroup was observed at significant frequencies in each of the southern Middle Siberian populations studied. Surprisingly, it reached its highest frequency in the Siberian Eskimos and Chukchi from the Chukotkan peninsula. The Tat-C haplogroup was absent in the Lower Amur and Sea of Okhotsk region populations that have maintained greater geographic and/or linguistic isolation (e.g., the Udegeys, Nivkhs, and Upriver Negidals) and was only detected in the populations likely to have had recent contact or shared origins with the populations of southern Middle Siberia (e.g., the Okhotsk Evenks, Ulchi/Nanai, and Downriver Negidals). Because the Tat-C polymorphism originated on a Y chromosome containing the DYS7C deletion (haplogroup 7C), which was present only in the Middle Siberian Tuvans, Buryats, Tofalars, and Yenisey Evenks, the Tat-C haplogroup probably entered the Lower Amur and eastern Siberia from southern Middle Siberia. This conclusion is consistent with the previous hypothesis that the Tat-C and 7C haplogroups arose in central Asia and migrated west to northern Europe and east to Chukotka (Zerjal et al. 1997).
The network of Tat-C and DYS7C haplotypes revealed that the ancestral Tat-C haplotype (7C[11-11-10-10]) was found only in southern Middle Siberia, indicating that this Y-chromosome lineage arose in that region. Moreover, the limited microsatellite diversity and resulting compact nature of the network indicates that the Tat-C lineage arose relatively recently (Zerjal et al. 1997). The absence of the Tat-C haplogroup in the Americas, with the exception of a single Navajo (Karafet et al. 1999), along with its high frequency in both northern Europe and northeastern Siberia, indicates that the Tat-C lineage was disseminated from central Asia by both westward and eastward male migrations, the eastward migration reaching Chukotka after the Bering Land Bridge was submerged. Both the M45 and Tat-C haplogroups have been found in Europe, indicating both ancient and recent central Asian influences. However, neither of these major Middle Siberian Y-chromosome lineages appears to have been greatly influenced by the paternal gene pool of Han Chinese or other East Asian populations (Su et al. 1999).

(Lell et al., Am J Hum Genet, 2002)

   Tat-C Frequencies

Yakuts..........87% Eskimos.........61% Chukchi.........58% Finns...........55% Buryats.........52% Tofalars........47% 
Lithuanians.....47% Lapps...........42% Estonians.......37% Maris...........33% Latvians........32% Nenets..........30% 
Tuvans..........18% Chuvash.........18% Russians........14% Ukrainians......11% North Swedes.....8% Gotlanders.......6% 
Norwegians.......6% Poles............4% Germans..........3% Armenians........3% Slovakians.......3% Danes............2% 
Belarusians......2% Turks............1%

   7C Frequencies

Nenets..........50% Tofalars........47% Tuvans..........28% Buryats.........15% Maris...........17% Czechs...........6% 
Estonians........4% Russians.........4% Finns............2% Yugoslavians.....2% Cypriots.........2% Poles............1% 
Slovakians.......1% Turks............1%

   (Kittles et al. 1998, Rosser et al. 2000, Dupuy et al. 2001, Wells et al. 2001, Lell et al. 2002 and Puzyrev et al. 2003)

So, stop pasing off as White and face up to the fact that you are a mixed people.

NB: (Posted as Response 3/9/06) Everyone is a 'mixed people'. The odds are good that all such terms represented in this/these survey(s) fail to accurately represent genetic sub-groups, and are a constructed terminology with little or no basis in reality which has been implemented solely for 'ease of use'. The lesson: Don't blame individuals for their terminology; and society won't change unless it becomes convenient or necessary. Besides, odds are also good that the ideas and institutions which gave rise to this terminology are gone or defunct (like eugenics) and that the terminology will change as modern techniques (genetics) develop better terminology. These changes take time, and these terms represent such a trivial point of existence that the exasperation embodied by the above commentary is unnecessary. (But the statistics are interesting.)

The more you spread race heatred against White people, the more White they become.

I removed this line from the article "The American population is therefore only around 60% pure White European(180 million people)", because it seems to support notions of "purity" that are problematic to put it mildly. Not least among the problems is that I suspect a fair number of Americans (esp. those with pre-Reconstruction roots in the US) have black and native ancestors that they are unaware of. Besides, Europeans aren't exactly "pure" white either, there have been plenty of interaction with other races over the centuries. I'm not arguing here against the use of racial categories "white" or otherwise, and I'm not particularly afraid of anyone's hatred (or heatred!) of whitey, just pointing out that racial categorizations don't merit any sense of "purity". As it is, I think the article gives a fair sense of American ethnic distribution and also the difficulties in getting any solid definitions or percentages. 171.159.64.10 00:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

As another response, "white" in this context is a grouping of ethnicities—just like "black" includes all dark-skinned people of African descent. Of course it obscures distinctions. Heck, in the Census Bureau definitions, "Asian" doesn't even distinguish between Chinese, Indian, Filipino, etc. I'd say the Middle Siberian tidbits posted above are substantially less of a big deal than lumping such disparate "Asians" into one category. I agree with the basic premise, that "white" is a misleading label, but on the other hand, it's not any more misleading than any other label. The above poster is correct about terminology—these are just groups that sometimes make discussion easier, and to that extent are useful. For example, in saying "Historically in America, blacks have faced prejudice and hostility from whites", whether the blacks came from Nigeria or Kenya and the whites from England or Poland isn't really an important distinction.
Also, I apologize for editing another user's post, but I changed the formatting on the provided statistics for readability. —Ryan McDaniel 21:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

All U.S. Census Bureau statistics are self-reported: they reflect how the people see themselves, not any kind of exact scientific defintion. Funnyhat 18:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The article says that there are 700 million whites in the US. I'm changing it to 70 million just so its not so grossly over the current population alone. I don't have time to look into what it really is. Would someone please correct this?
This was part of a 3-edit vandalism ([1]) by 24.248.163.216 (talk · contribs). I've just reverted the remaining changes they made and left a warning on their user talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] United States Population

What was the total population of the United States during the twentieth century ? 1900, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 ? Do not care about US definition of races or religions or other minor items, what was the population ?

Well, the obvious place to look is the U.S. Census Bureau website. Whether you can easily find such a concise overview of their terabytes (petabytes? exabytes?) of data is another question. For a lark, I decided to try it. Starting with the American Fact-Finder link I provided above in "300 million date", I wandered uselessly around various promising links. I eventually decided to try the to search the FAQs with the convenient link on the USCB home page. Its first hit was "Historical population data", which led to "Selected Historical And Decennial Census Population and Housing Counts", which led to two links, "1790 to 1990: Population, Housing Units, Area Measurements, and Density" (which provided a summary for each decade, including the totals we're after, through 1990) and "Historical Census Reports", which provided a 2000 link, which listed a bunch of separate reports, from which I picked "PHC-1. Summary Population and Housing Characteristics", subreport "United States - Part 1", which presented on page 16 (Table 1: Age and Sex 2000) the 2000 total. (I suspect most of the other reports of this last group would also have the total somewhere in their summary tables.) Whew! I'm sure there are many other easier places to get this number, but this is from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Anyway, U.S. population totals since the census's inception are… (drum roll, please!):
1790 3,929,214 1870 38,558,371 1950 151,325,798
1800 5,308,483 1880 50,189,209 1960 179,323,175
1810 7,239,881 1890 62,979,766 1970 203,302,031
1820 9,638,453 1900 76,212,168 1980 226,542,199
1830 12,866,020 1910 92,228,496 1990 248,709,873
1840 17,069,453 1920 106,021,537 2000 281,421,906
1850 23,191,876 1930 123,202,624
1860 31,443,321 1940 132,164,569
More info than was asked for, but it was a useful and interesting excercise. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The U.S. population is characterized as slow growth, with a large baby boomer cohort. Births, supplemented by immigration, help to offset the aging population. The total U.S. population crossed the 200,000,000 mark in 1968, and the 100,000,000 mark around 1915.

Who wrote this? How can you characterize the population as slow growth when we're growing at 5.3 percent each year? The united states population as of 2007 is growing at about 0.8 percent per year and not 5.3 percent.

[edit] Population density

Is there a reason why the section on densely-populated cities uses pop. per square km when the table of the largest cities uses pop. per square mile? Funnyhat 18:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The Dallas figure was wrong so it was deleted. An incorrect coversion factor was used to convert SQMI to SQKM.

How were the cities that are shown chosen? It is not a complete list in order, correct? If so, Cambridge, MA seems to be missing.

[edit] Abortion

Shouldn't we include those aborted in the birth and death ratio?

The government doesn't keep statistics on that. See Talk:Death. Durova 20:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Appropriate?

Wouldn't this article be appropriate in the External Links section?

˜˜˜˜

[edit] Christian Denominations

You need to fix the demography that shows Christian denominations, as Mormons/Latter Day Saints are not considered Christians. They are a branch off of Christianity that changed many of the beliefs, and are outside of mainstream Christianity.

Mormons are considered Christians, just not Protestants. Sowelilitokiemu (talk) 02:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of the word American (again)

Having the adjective "american" being appropriated and used in a culturally imperialistic way is bad enough. But calling the US population "american people" sets me speechless.~~LtDoc~~

Why? The population of the United States is called the "American people"- the people that constitute American (or US) society. Is this becuase you suspect the using the word American to describe soley the US as being US-centric? SignaturebrendelNow under review! 01:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it's not technically descriptive, but that's the common usage. I don't see us suddenly calling ourselves "United Statians" just to give people a warm fuzzy in South or Central America or Canada.

[edit] Unemployment

I don't know where the April estimates are with Hispanic unemployment at 14 percent, but the BLS numbers I found for 2005 had it at 5.3 percent, and the September Pew study has it at 4.9 percent... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hilltroll (talk • contribs) 06:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

Literacy cannot be 99% in America. Here is quote from Wiki on America - "The United States also has a low literacy rate compared to other developed countries, with a reading literacy rate at 86 - 98% of the population over age 15.[89]" [2]

Literacy cannot be 99% in America. Here is quote from Wiki on America - "The United States also has a low literacy rate compared to other developed countries, with a reading literacy rate at 86 - 98% of the population over age 15.[89]" [3]

[edit] principle of most surprise?

This article greatly violates the Principle of least surprise.

[edit] Things I expect to find in the inro

  • Total US population (esp. being as I was forwarded here when searching U.S. population)
This should probably be the first thing mentioned.
  • Male vs. female population
  • Life expectancy

[edit] Things I did not expect to find

  • Ramblings about the low number of people living near the ocean (wtf?!)
  • Characterizing population growth rate as "slow" (how about some numbers?) accompanied by musings about immigration.

What's with this article... I've seen some POV dumps before, but on this article??

c'mon... 71.70.209.212 22:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

What is interesting is that 15% of the US Population is on Food Stamps.

[edit] Literacy Rate

http://wjz.com/topstories/topstories_story_078135610.html

Quoted from above link: The report says the district's functional illiteracy rate is 36 percent and the nation's 21 percent.

I'm not sure how there can be such a large discrepancy between what's listed in this article and what's mentioned as a quote from the DC education agency. Sure, some of it will be accounted for by different metrics (ie being able to read a sample text, and being able explain orally what is written vs knowing that those 26 things are letters, and being able to name at least 15 of them).

It seems too large a discrepancy to be purely a metrics issue. Perhaps some areas of the US government are so complacent about literacy ("everyone I know can read") that it simply isn't questioned when published as a fact?

If illiteracy is really that big of a problem, complacency isn't an option at all.

Does anyone actually know how these figures are produced, though? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.105.172.181 (talk) 09:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] "The majority of population growth in the United States is now attributable to immigrants and births to immigrants"

This seems doubtful - my best estimate, from rough graphs, is that no more than a third of population growth is due to immigrants. Adam Cuerden talk 22:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I say take that out. Aaron 21 June 2007.

Nearly two-thirds of Canada’s population growth comes from immigrants, according to the 2006 census, compared with the United States, where about 43 percent of the population growth comes from immigration.

However, it's not clear if this means immigrants alone, births to recent immigrants, or births to any foreign-born. --JWB 20:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename from demographics to demography

Please see Talk:Demography#Demographics_vs_demography_confusion and comment.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs serious work: San Antonio does not have a population of 22 million people

What's going on with this article? San Antonio obviously doesn't have a population of 22 million people, inside or outside city limits. --Nate Silva 22:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

This article and other articles with dry demographic data are frequent targets of prank edits by folks who like to randomly change the numbers. When you see a problem like this, there's a good chance that someone has recently tweaked the numbers, as 198.170.169.241 (talk · contribs) did by changing "1,256,509" to "22,256,509" and then "promoting" San Antonio on this basis. (That's more than they normally do. In my experience, they usually just insert extra digits into numbers and make sure the result has balanced commas to disguise the prank.) To paraphrase the famous saying (usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson but probably originating with John Philpot Curran), the price of editing liberty is eternal vigilance. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chicago's Population

I reverted Chicago's population from nearly 4 million (city limits) to what was on Chicago's Wikipedia page...if someone feels it was incorrect to do so, change it in account that you got the information from a reliable source Jfcr3wp 22:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Social Class

In the section on social class, the number $350,0000 is obviously a mistake. Should it read $350,000 or $3,500,000? -Athaler 15:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


-- -Same question here. What is the number "350,0000" supposed to be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.2.240.222 (talk) 17:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

That has been there since the revision as of 03:48, June 15, 2007 introduced the {{Social class in the US}} template. It appears to be a typo in that template. I have made the obvious correction. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needs Update

I believe Phoenix has passed Philadelphia in population.

This article contradicts what National Geographic says about where most of the US population lives in regards to the ocean. Here's the site: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/gk2/seascare.html

What's the deal with that?

[edit] Where the population lives

This article contradicts what National Geographic says about where most of the US population lives in regards to the ocean. Here's the site: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/gk2/seascare.html

What's the deal with that?

[edit] "Urban" population of the US

The statistics on what percentage of the population is living in "urban" areas is misleading. The US Census Bureau uses a definition of "urban" that does not match the way the word is commonly used in discussion, leading most people to believe that a large majority of the US population lives in or near large metro such as the Boston/NY/Philidelphia/Baltimore/DC corridor, Detroit, Chicago, LA, Houston, etc, etc, etc.

In reality, many of the people classified as "urban" live in small towns far from any metro area.

http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027.html#urban

In 1950, the urban definition was changed to include the following three categories: (1) incorporated cities, towns (except in the New England states, New York, and Wisconsin, for the reason noted above), boroughs, and villages with 2,500 or more inhabitants; (2) unincorporated territory in the "urban fringe" of cities of 50,000 or more population; and (3) unincorporated places of 2,500 or more inhabitants defined by the Census Bureau. The changes from the 1940 definition were designed to improve the classification of densely settled unincorporated territory and were made in conjunction with the first delineation of urbanized areas. Urbanized areas were defined generally as cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants and their surrounding densely settled urban fringe, whether or not incorporated. (Urbanized areas differ in concept from metropolitan areas, which were also first defined in 1950. In general, metropolitan areas were defined as cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants, their counties, and surrounding counties which had a high degree of social and economic integration with the core. Metropolitan areas thus included urban population not contiguous to the core as well as rural population.) Changes in the urban definition since 1950 have been relatively minor. Starting in 1960, the Census Bureau defined unincorporated places not only outside urbanized areas, but also in unincorporated territory in the urban fringe of urbanized areas.

This needs to be included in the main article in some way.

69.95.253.101 19:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] San Antonio is Southern?

Now I know cities in Texas like Houston and Dallas are usually considered southern cities, but SAN ANTONIO? San Antonio never really had much of a southern culture, and there's a significant growth in hispanic number, and I always considered the city to be more of a Southwestern city. (Gameguy662 23:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC))


[edit] U.S. federal law defines Hispanic to indicate any person with ancestry from a Latin American country or Spain

Does this mean that a person from Brazil that speaks Portuguese is also defined as a hispanic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 23:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No. OMB: "The term "Hispanic" refers to persons who trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central and South America, and other Spanish cultures."[4] So nothing about Brazil. SamEV 06:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Last I checked, Brazil was in South America. So according to this definition, it should be included.149.217.1.6 (talk) 13:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Last I checked, Brazil was not one of the "Spanish cultures". SamEV (talk) 00:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
In Latin American Studies, the term 'Hispanic' is commonly asserted to descend from British colonial racial slurs for the residents of Hispaniola under British rule (and is therefore generally not preferred, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spic_(slur); it does not have a clear NPOV 'referent.' One might wish to recall that US law also defines pi as 3.0, and is not the final authority on such issues. However, the OMB Standards document referenced above by SamEv notes that, for the very limited purposes of what US Executive orders mean in "ethnic classification," the term "Hispanic" has been changed to "Hispanic and Latino." As already noted, SamEv also contradicts him/herself: "to... Cuba, Central and South America... so nothing about Brazil." Brazil is in South America and much of its population descends from Carribean populations (eg the people the British colonials would have termed 'Hispanics.') Regardless, the clumbersome locution "Hispanic or Latino" seems to encompass all of the Latin Americas, 'whatever that may mean.' KenThomas (talk) 08:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
KenThomas, please note that not only are Brazilian Americans not explicitly mentioned in the definitions, they're also missing from detailed Hispanic or Latino population reports: [5], [6]. How is that a contradiction on my part? Other links you might find interesting are [7], [8]. As to the Caribbean ancestry of some or many Brazilians, what's the connection? The US is a sovereign nation. Britain's definition of Hispanic does not apply here. Moreover, those are Brazilians now, whatever else they were called in the past, by whomever. As for the origin of "Hispanic", the Spic (slur) article makes no mention of Hispaniola. And btw, Hispaniola was never under British rule. SamEV (talk) 19:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] false precision for 300 million mark

This quote seems to be an example of false precision: "The total U.S. population crossed the 100 million mark around 1915, the 200 million mark in 1967, and the 300 million mark in 2006 (on Tuesday, October 17)." The Census Bureau's PopClock may have registered 300 million on October 17, but that is an extrapolation of the number counted in the census, not the exact number of people living in the country. The Bureau admits that the census fails to count several million people 1990 Census Bureau, Census Undercount Background Information. That margin of error is much too large to pin the event to an exact month, let alone day. Cephal-odd (talk) 02:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] wili-nilly changes and unsupported figures

This page just popped up on my watchlist,with an unsupported change in the population of Los Angeles from 4,018,080 to 4,324,526 and of Chicago from 2,833,321 to 3,158,790 These changes were not accompanied with corresponding changes in the population density figures, but it was a revert — perhaps the change being reverted did not adjust those figures. I note that the text introducing the table where these changes were made says, "For more details see the "American Fact Finder" at the Census site.[9] Looking at that site, I see that this page gives the population of Los Angeles as 3,773,846, and this page gives the population of Chicago as 2,749,283.

Has anyone here ever wondered why so many people complain that the information in Wikipedia is crap? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I reverted two suspicious edits for seven reasons: 1) the edits did not point to any source, 2) the info seemed incorrect to me (it shows LA losing population), 3) there were no edit summaries, 4) the author was an IP, 5) s/he modified long-established info, which I assuemed had been vetted by other editors, 6) the recent history of vandalism to the article, 7) I counted on the IP's repeating its edits, but with citations this time, if they were indeed intended in good faith. I admit I didn't verify the accuracy of the info I was restoring, but given the circumstances found it best to give it the benefit of the doubt over the new info. I must say that other than the Race and ethnicity section, I'm not all that familiar with this article. SamEV (talk) 23:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about my grumpiness above. It was a product of frustration overflow at seeing yet another example of unsupported figures in a WP article which, when checked against the cited supporting source, turn out to differ from the figures given in that cited supporting source. I didn't intend to criticize your revert specifically — the unsupported figures which appear to be out of agreement with the cited supporting source didn't come from your revert.
I'm not sure what the figures in the article mean anyhow, or where they come from. In the Current U.S. population section, the article says, "For more details see the 'American Fact Finder' at the Census site.[10] " The table which follows that gives (for example) a figure of 8,143,197 for the population "within city limits" of New York City. this page at the cited supporting source doesn't mention anything about city limits and gives a "Census 2000" figure (8,008,676) and seven yearly estimate figures. None of these figures match the figure in the article. The article gives New York a population density of 10,194.2 persons/km2. Dividing 8,143,197 by 10,194.2 gives a land area of 798.8 km2 for New York. The List of United States cities by area article disagrees, giving the land area of New York City as 788 km2. That article says, "All data is provided by the United States Census Bureau and is current as of 2000." Perhaps land area info by city is available from the Census Bureau, but I haven't been able to find it on their web site. I would do some work to try to straighten this out, but don't know where to start. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That's all right, Bill. I feel the same frustration, too, sometimes. I'll take a look at the rest of the article and see if I can help, problably beginning on Thursday. SamEV (talk) 02:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)