Authored by Lila Valencia, Ph.D., City Demographer, City of Austin, Texas
To highlight ACS (American Community Survey) Awareness Month, the National League of Cities is spotlighting communities that have used ACS data to drive positive change in our From Data to Decisions series.
Austin, Texas is one of a handful of U.S. cities that employs a city demographer, a social scientist who studies population to assess demographic shifts and growth patterns. Demographers anticipate coming population trends to assist local governments with planning and to inform decision-making in areas related to housing, transportation, water and electricity consumption and other public services.
Local demographers study the size, composition and movement of population at the city, county and regional level, using census data, vital statistics records and data on migration, development and economic indicators. Demographers study current populations and predict how the population will change in the future. They use tools such as demographic methods run in statistical software, geospatial information systems (or GIS) and research from fellow demographers, geographers, economists and other social scientists.
Demographers’ skills are critical in a variety of contexts, from rapidly changing cities undergoing significant development, to slowly growing areas in need of economic development initiatives, to regions confronting new challenges such as coastal cities dealing with sea level rise and other climate impacts. City demographers often work closely with:
- Urban and regional planners as they design land use plans, housing development, transportation systems and zoning policies;
- Utilities to optimize infrastructure investments based on anticipated future consumption;
- Finance and budget staff, who use population estimates and projections to produce revenue and expenditure projections and bond disclosures indicating a municipality’s financial health;
- Public health officials to understand social determinants of health and health disparities;
- Community engagement specialists to ensure the voices of historically marginalized communities are heard; and
- Decision-makers to ground policies in data and evidence.
Demographers are trained to deal with data, and therefore can offer survey methodology support, provide data collection guidance and produce or evaluate complex statistical analyses. Demographers are playing an increasingly important role as data systems undergo shocks such as those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and the data blackout experienced when federal agencies rushed to comply with new executive orders. As federal data systems become more vulnerable to external forces and public access is more tightly limited, demographers will play an important role in helping to build local data systems, evaluate products from third-party data vendors and produce governance on new artificial data types.
In Austin, the Demographics and Data team led by the city demographer created the City’s Demographics Hub, including quick stats, interactive maps, demographic profiles and in-depth analysis and reports. The online hub also links to the City of Austin’s population estimates and projections, and the Delphi, Trends, and Imagine Austin Forecast, a set of small-area forecasts of employment and population produced by a work group comprised of representatives from 12 City of Austin departments. These resources are available to both City staff and the public.
Austin’s Community Profile Builder
A key tool for any demographer is the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) data. Demographers use the ACS to understand the makeup of their community, evaluate disparities and communicate needs to policymakers. Austin’s Community Profile Builder is a web mapping application developed in coordination with ESRI and powered by ACS data to create a demographic profile with a range of topics and characteristics — including race and ethnicity, housing units, housing costs, health and disabilities and education and employment — for custom geographies within the Austin metropolitan statistical area.
The City of Austin has had a demographer on staff since 1995 when geographer Ryan Robinson stepped into the position. Lila Valencia is the City’s second demographer and has been on staff since 2021. Austin’s demographers have guided the city through periods of long-sustained growth and unprecedented development as well as recent slower growth and affordability challenges.
Presently, the city demographer is positioning Austin for a successful 2030 census count. Given Austin’s enduring dynamic population change, increasingly complex and vulnerable data systems and foreseeable demographic challenges like fertility declines, population aging and climate-induced migration, it doesn’t take a futurist to predict that local leaders and city staff will continue to seek out the expertise of a demographer for years to come.
Calling All Demographers!
Does your community have a city demographer? Let us know!
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