Post-Standard Editorial
How big a city is Syracuse? It depends on what time it is.
If you’re talking about 11 p.m., the population is 147,306.
If you’re talking about noon, the population is more lake 187,103.
What’s the difference? It’s the people who commute to work from outside the city. A first-time study from the U.S. Census Bureau on “estimated daytime populations” reports that Syracuse grows by 27 percent during the day.
Those 39,797 people who become daytime Syracusans are the ones who were the targets of mayoral candidate Howie Hawkins’ proposal for a commuter tax. They’re the ones who were happy to see Hawkins get about 4 percent of the vote.
Some cities see a greater impact from commuters; others see a reverse effect.
For example, Baldwinsville gets smaller by 662 people, or 9.4 percent, when the workday begins. Some of them are probably Syracusans by day, Baldwinsvillians by night.
The full report is available at the Census Bureau’s American Factfinder site on the Web: factfinder.census.gov
Posted by syracusegreens at November 20, 2005 06:27 PM