March 30, 2010. It’s a little silly. I can’t grab the url from any census video on youtube. They blocked this feature on youtube – or else this post would be livelier. 
Why is Census information collected? The primary reason is this: “Census information affects the numbers of seats your state occupies in the U.S. House of Representatives.” (Census.gov)
Initially it was about politics.
Over the years the Census began to represent other things like this: An accurate count of residents secures federal funding for communities. “Better infrastructure. More services” says the Census website. Plus census data is used by hospitals to determine the demographics of their constituents and the services needed in the surrounding communities. It is used in the field of Public Health, for example, to pinpoint outbreaks of disease to limit the spread. In Planning it provides the demographic information of communities, and much more.
So…it’s really important we all fill out our Census forms.
PerfectlyPlanned Blog by W. S. Hughes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
A Case Study on Maplewood, NJ with a Focus on Suburban Planning, Community and Youth Development 