You Count

By MICHAEL GOTTLIEB
California Real Estate Journal Editor

The most important statistic to track in 2010 will be you.

Each new decade brings a new U.S. Census and the Census Bureau has launched the largest civic outreach and awareness campaign in the nation's history with its 2010 Census Portrait of America Road Tour.

"The Road Tour seeks to educate and empower every person living across our country to take part and participate in the 2010 Census," said Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau.

It shouldn't require a $300 million campaign to impress upon the California commercial real estate industry the importance of being counted. Officially census data is used to reapportion congressional seats and ensure proper district representation; determine how more than $400 billion a year in federal funding is distributed throughout the country; and guide local planning decisions, including investment in social services and infrastructure.

For California, the campaign and the approach by the federal government to embrace the letter of the law, which requires everyone in the United States, both citizens and noncitizens, to be counted every year, is critical. In the 2000 Census, the bureau noted for the first time an overcount of 1.3 million people, mostly affluent whites with multiple homes. Meanwhile, about 4.5 million people were missed, mostly blacks and Hispanics, groups that are consistently undercounted despite a reversal of a three-decade decline in response rate. With a minority majority population, the likelihood is that a large percentage of the people missed in the prior census were in California. That compounded the adage of ABC - Anywhere But California - that dominated the outlook toward federal funding expectations for the Golden State in the prior administration.

So the promise of a more accurate count of all of the nation's more than 300 million people and an administration that is more friendly toward blue states like ours offers the possibility of California getting a larger share of the federal financial pie. Our Libertarian friends may not appreciate it, but with the state facing a $21 billion revenue shortfall and an annual underinvestment in transportation infrastructure to the tune of nearly $11 billion, according to Transportation California, we need every dollar we can get.

But for commercial real estate that is just one benefit of getting an accurate demographic accounting of the nation's 120 million households.

Much of the industry's investment decision-making process is guided by the raw data collected by Census Bureau workers. If you look at the fine-print of most of the data and market research available, you'll see that they generally source relatively few core resources including the census. Even the census' annual American Community Survey extrapolates information based on the most recent census count.

Companies looking to locate in an area want detailed information on the surrounding workforce. Retailers draw rings around locations to assess market demand and residential developers look to the availability versus demand for housing when making big bets on a particular market. Additionally, tax credit allocations, redevelopment zones and other on-the-ground efforts to improve communities are guided by census tract data.

A more accurate, more complete census will not only aid in the overall real estate decision-making process by providing more up-to-date information, but by focusing on being more inclusive to all residents it will open up new markets that previously had been overlooked because the market statistics were skewed. And you'll be surprised how often data challenges common misperceptions. For example, it is common to hear people say that people are moving out of California, but according to the 2009 Atlas Van Lines Migration Patterns study, inbound migration to California has exceeded outbound migration the past three years. It may not be as official as a census count, but don't the movers always know first when people move?

Now is the time that truly smart decisions are needed in commercial real estate and that only can be achieved with the best market intelligence available. So when that Census Bureau worker knocks on your door a few months from now, take the 10 minutes to answer the 10 questions and ensure that you are just another statistic.

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