Detroit’s Second Stand: Legal Battle Over Census Undercounts Amplifies City’s Call for Equity and Recognition

Detroit has taken legal action against the U.S. Census Bureau and Commerce Department for a second time, leveling serious allegations of an undercount in its population figures. This recent lawsuit, filed under the administration of Mayor Mike Duggan in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, represents a continued struggle to ensure accurate representation and fair allocation of resources based on Census data. The city’s primary contention is with the Census Bureau’s methodology, which it claims systematically undercounts urban populations, especially those in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, by relying on a standardized formula that fails to account for the unique characteristics of housing in older cities. This legal challenge is not Detroit’s first confrontation with Census figures. The city’s population, according to the 2020 Census, was marked at 639,115, a figure that saw a further decline to 620,376 by July 2022, signaling a stark 15% decrease from the 731,777 residents reported in 2010. Detroit officials argue that this decline is not reflective of the city’s actual population dynamics but rather the result of a “fundamentally flawed formula” used by the Census Bureau, which bases its population estimates primarily on the number of housing units, without adequate...