Let there be records! Yesterday, the National Archives flicked on the switch for the 1940 census, marking the end of 72 years of confidentiality that held the records back from the public. In less than four hours, the site was paralyzed after being hit with 22 million visitors as people across the country clamored to fact-check their family's oral histories heard from grandparents everywhere.

With a database like this, New York in the 1940s is open to the public's eye. Think about it: you could find Truman Capote, James Baldwin and Allen Ginsberg (to name a few members of the city's cream of the crop at the time) if you put enough effort into it. But, here at the Voice, we found that the search  can prove to be tedious, long and unsuccessful if you only have snippets of information to toss into the browse window.

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via City Planning's official challenge

Map shows change in vacancies over the last decade according to the Census

​Sorry, Mike! The city is just not as big as you think it is.

That's according to the U.S. Census Bureau, anyway, which, in very unsurprising news, has announced that it is not revising its official population count for 2010, despite the city's official challenge of the final number.

Every ten years, the Census counts populations across the country, coming up with a new number that determines how different regions are funded and how populations are represented through new districts. The typical song and dance is that city government officials dispute the conclusion, arguing that their city is actually much bigger than the Census determined. This time around, the 2010 Census found the city's population to be 8,175,133, but the city's Department of Planning has argued that the population was closer to 8.4 million as of July 2010.

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​Yesterday, the state -- after a fair amount of delay and confusion -- finally released map proposals for new district lines in New York, based on Census data.

We heard from one angry pol yesterday, predictably mad at the political motivations that often drive the process. He's not the only frustrated elected -- and there's been a lot of talk today about what the next step might be for those who are upset with the process or product of redistricting.

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​New Yorkers may want to ensure that they have fair representation in our fine democratic system, but sometimes it can be difficult to get jazzed up about the nitty-gritty of mapmaking. But new technology available this redistricting cycle is making it easier for advocates and academics to get involved in the process and present actual map representations that have clout. While the politics of redistricting continue (Gov. Andrew Cuomo has continued campaigning for an independent redistricting committee and the GOP is trying to assert its influence with a new Senate seat), advocacy groups across the state have been producing their own maps and sending them to Albany for consideration.

Today, Runnin' Scared caught up with an initiative called the NY Redistricting Project, which held a competition and released its map recommendations at Fordham University's Manhattan campus. The maps were devised by students from across the state -- and are of particular interest since they are entirely removed from the world of politics and interest groups with, well, specific interests. (A coalition of civil rights groups came out with a "Unity Map" last week focused on minority representation -- also worth a look).

The student maps released today offer recommendations for lines throughout the state, but have some specific ideas for how New York City can be drawn in a fairer, more logical way.

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​As the political games of redistricting heat up this week, civil rights groups are staying focused on the prize: good maps. A coalition of advocacy groups teamed up yesterday and released what they call the "Unity Map," which contains specific recommendations for Senate, Assembly, and Congressional districts that they argue will help give minority groups the strongest voice in the electoral process.

Every 10 years, states across the country redraw district lines based on Census data, and given the growth of several key minority groups in New York City, it's important that the new lines keep these communities united, advocates argue.

The Unity Map -- which is a recommendation sent to the state agency that handles redistricting -- draws four Asian American majority State Assembly districts (compared to one under current lines). In Queens, the number of Asian Americans has skyrocketed 300 times faster than the rest of the borough's population over the past decade; the Unity Map recommends one majority State Senate district for Flushing/Bayside. The map also unites splintered Asian American neighborhoods in Eastern Queens, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Manhattan's Chinatown within Congressional districts.

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​This week, the redistricting drama continues. In case you forgot, redistricting is that complicated process every 10 years when states across the country redraw congressional and state legislative boundaries based on Census data.

Well, there's been a lot of controversy in New York this time around about the way those lines are drawn and their impact on ethnic groups that live in the city -- and new data to be presented next week could shake things up further. Next Tuesday in Albany, the state will discuss new stats about prisoner populations, which could have a meaningful impact on how lines are drawn and the campaigns of redistricting advocacy groups.

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​According to a recent analysis of census data from the Empire Center New York State Policy, New Yorkers are leaving for other states in the greatest numbers of the past three decades. However, this doesn't mean that our numbers are shrinking: The population rose from 18.9 million to 19.4 million throughout the state, according to the 2010 census. This is because more babies are being born than people are dying/moving away, plus there are the 895,150 people who have moved here from abroad in the last 10 years -- which means your rent is still high, your apartment is still small, and you still have to fight it out for a taxi to the airport in the rain. But! The number of people leaving New York State outnumbered those arriving from other states by "more than 1.5 million," and this is the "second consecutive decade in which domestic migration loss was the highest of any state as a percentage of population." New York had the third highest rate of loss among 20 states; economists attribute this to a number of reasons including housing and business costs, lack of good job opportunities, and, hey, it's hard to live here. Which is part of what makes it worth it (for some of us, at least) when we don't fly south for winter. [NYT]

Go to Runnin' Scared for all our latest news coverage.

​A few months ago it was reported that New York City's (already low) 50 percent return rate on census forms was brought down by "the hipster enclave of Williamsburg, Brooklyn," where only 30 percent filled out the forms that help make important funding decisions. "These young, recent graduates with ironic mustaches and plaid shirts are apparently too busy tweeting to fill out a simple census form," said NPR. This week, the issue came up again in a City Council committee hearing called to figure out just why NYC's numbers seemed so off: "Hipsters," said one woman.

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​New York tops Los Angeles as the "ethnic-diversity capital of the U.S." according to the latest census numbers, as compared to ten years ago, due mostly to an increase in Asians and Hispanics. Both cities saw a decrease in the number of white and black people, but NYC's Asian population grew 31.8 percent since 2000, and now accounts for 12.6 percent of all residents. The "diversity gauge" quantifies the likelihood that "two residents selected at random in the same census tract will be of a different race or ethnicity," and is illustrated best in the traditionally Italian section of Brooklyn known as Dyker Heights: "Some of the residents here were so concerned about blacks moving in, they didn't even notice the influx of Asians." [Bloomberg]

​When New York's census results came back revealing unexpectedly low numbers, it seemed clear that something -- possibly many somethings -- was wrong. Now the Daily News reports that apparent housing losses in Manhattan's most dense neighborhoods may be due to, you guessed it, human error, including extra-vigilant doormen who wouldn't let in census workers to count or tally for "security reasons"; immigrants who may have avoided the census out of fear; and a failure among census workers to identify under-construction units as such, instead of as "vacant."

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