Fayette top census loser
Results from the 2010 census shows Fayette County lost the most residents of any county in southwestern Pennsylvania, experiencing an 8.1 percent drop in population.
Given the county’s older population, the loss wasn’t unexpected, but needs to be addressed, Commissioners Chairman Vincent Zapotosky said on Thursday.
“We definitely need to admit that we need to do something,” Zapotosky said. “Even though it’s a negative number, we have to take a positive approach to it. We could sit and dwell on the negatives or work to find the answer.”
While Pennsylvania as a whole grew from 12.2 to 12.7 million in population, Fayette was one of six of the state’s 67 counties that lost between 5.1 and 14.9 percent of its population, according to census data.
Fayette’s population dropped from 148,644 in 2000 to 136,606 in 2010.
Zapotosky said that drop shows that attracting new residents should be on the same plane of importance as economic growth in the county.
“It’s a serious problem, and we need to sit down collectively, and try to find ways to make Fayette County a better place to live,” Zapotosky said. “I’m going to make it a top priority as it should be.”
Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites said that absent a modest population gain between 1990 and 2000, the number of county residents has been on the decline since 1930.
He noted that for the 2010 census, officials maximized efforts to get people to respond and be counted. Vicites estimated that the response rate was about 78 percent, up from the estimated 65 percent response rate for the 2000 census.
Vicites noted that on the western side of the county a population drop was the trend, not the exception.
“This whole half of the state, with the exception of Washington and Butler (counties), lost population,” Vicites said. “And those were only slight gains.”
Washington County gained 2.4 percent in population and Butler County gained 5.6 percent, according to data.
“The one thing I know is we did get an accurate count. I feel very sure on that based on the increase in response,” Vicites said. “We just have to keep trying to move this county ahead, and hopefully in the next decade, we’ll have an increase in population.”
Commissioner Angela M. Zimmerlink declined comment on the population decline.
However, she said that Doug Hill, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP), indicated that because this is the first time Fayette County fell below the population threshold for fourth-class counties, its class would not change.
Hill related that if the county remained below the threshold in the 2020 census, the class could change, Zimmerlink said.
The state’s 67 counties are divided into class based on population. Fourth-class counties have populations from 145,000 to 209,999, according to CCAP’s website. Fifth-class counties range in population from 95,000 to 144,999, according to the site.
Neighboring Greene County lost 4.9 percent of its population, which took the rural county from 40,672 in 2000 to 38,686 in 2010.
Commissioner Chairwoman Pam Snyder said county officials expected a small decline in the county’s population between 2000 and 2010.
She noted that the county has a long-range comprehensive plan that addresses one of its biggest needs: housing.
Snyder said the older residents of Greene County who no longer can or want to handle the upkeep of their homes have to move out of the county to find housing. Younger people who want to stay don’t have many options for renting, and aren’t established enough to buy their own homes, Snyder said.
“As we continue to aggressively address our housing needs, I think it will have a big impact with people working in Greene County and living there,” Snyder said.
Though Greene’s population fits into the seventh-class county range, Snyder said the commissioners made the county a sixth-class county by resolution several years ago.
In Fayette County, Zapotosky said officials need to work toward improving the quality of life in the county, and embrace economic opportunities such as Marcellus shale natural gas drilling to allow for growth.
He said that Gov. Tom Corbett’s decision to pull the plug on a planned state prison in German Township was “a negative” for the county in terms of potential growth.
“Hopefully, in the next five years we start seeing some improvement. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s definitely got to happen,” he said.
The individual municipality that experienced the greatest loss in population was Ohiopyle, where there was a 23.4 percent drop. The small mountain-area borough dropped from 77 residents to 59 residents, according to data. The next most significant population loss occurred in Dawson, where the population dropped from 451 to 367, resulting in an 18.6 percent loss.
The population dropped 16.9 percent in Brownsville (2,804 to 2,331), 16.5 percent in Connellsville (9,146 to 7,637) and 16.5 percent in Uniontown (12,422 to 10,372).
Fayette County did gain 27.4 percent in the population of Luzerne Township, from 4,683 to 5,965. However, the inmates housed at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette in Luzerne Township count toward that number.
The prison opened in 2003.
The first release of census data was in late December, and based on those numbers, Pennsylvanians learned they would lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives through redistricting.
Losing one congressional seat is the smallest reduction in the state’s delegation in seven decades. Reapportionment figures cut the state’s number of congressmen from 19 to 18 for the 2012 election, despite slight growth over the past decade in total population, from 12.3 million to 12.7 million. The state’s growth rate of 3.4 percent lagged far behind the national rate of 12.7 percent.
The loss of only one seat is the fewest Pennsylvania has shed since 1940, when the number also fell by one, to 33. There were 36 Pennsylvania congressmen in the 1910s and 1920s.
In every other census since 1950, Pennsylvania has lost either two or three of its representatives in Washington, D.C.
A population count of the U.S. is undertaken every 10 years.
Complete results are available online at factfinder2.census.gov.
The state summaries include county-by-county population totals, totals for each municipality and data on age, gender and race.