COUNTY, CITY DATA

Dundee grows as Michigan declines

Village population up 12.4% in decade

Dundee anticipated growth with the opening of Cabela's in 1991. A recent survey shows the village's population has grown 12.4 percent since 2000.

Call it the Cabela's effect.

When the giant outdoor retailer decided in 1999 to move into the sleepy, historic little village of Dundee, Mich., people anticipated growth.

They got it.

In addition to the offshoot development of shops and businesses near Dundee's U.S. 23 exit, the village population itself grew 12.4 percent from 2000 to 2010, to 3,957 residents in 2010 from 3,522 in 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released by the federal government Tuesday.

"Cabela's put Dundee on the map," Patrick Burtch, Dundee's longtime administrator, told The Blade last August in what now appears to be an understatement.

Dundee's growth bucked the trend for most of Michigan, which lost population as a state.

The downtrodden southeast part of Michigan was hit especially hard. Detroit lost 25 percent of its population that decade.

Observers have attributed Michigan's overall decline largely to the state's longtime reliance on the auto industry, which recently has been showing promise after years of declining sales and countless layoffs.

Although Monroe County grew by 4.2 percent, the city of Monroe lost 6.1 percent of its population.

The Toledo-area suburbs of Temperance and Lambertville grew by 9.8 percent and 7 percent, respectively, though.

The city of Monroe's decline to 20,733 residents in 2010 from 22,076 in 2000 includes a 41 percent increase in its Hispanic population, to 860 from 610; a 14.6 percent increase in its African-American population, to 1,251 from 1,092; a 10 percent decrease in its white population, to 17,855 from 19,748, and a 9 percent decrease in youths 18 years of age and younger, to 5,435 from 5,941, records show.

Temperance grew to 8,517 residents from 7,757 over the same decade, and Lambertville's population went up to 9,953 from 9,299.

Hammered by the auto industry's slump, Detroit experienced a population drop to to 713,777 in 2010, compared with 951,270 in 2000.

Although a significant decrease was expected, state demographer Ken Darga said the number is "considerably lower" than the Census Bureau's estimate last year.

"That's just incredible," added Kurt Metzger, a demographer with Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit organization that collects statistics used by area planners. "It's certainly the largest population loss percentage-wise that we've ever had in this city."

Mayor Dave Bing disputed the numbers, claiming his city has at least 750,000 residents, which he called an important threshold for qualifying for some state and federal financial programs.

He didn't say how so many people were missed by census workers, but he said he planned to appeal.

Detroit's population peaked at 1.8 million in 1950, when it ranked fifth nationally. The numbers reflect the steady decline of the auto industry -- the city's economic lifeblood for a century -- and an exodus of many residents to the suburbs.

"The census figures clearly show how crucial it is to reinvent Michigan," Gov. Rick Snyder said.

"It is time for all of us to realign our expectations so that they reflect today's realities."

Grand Rapids, Michigan's second-largest city, has traditionally had a more stable economy. But it also experienced a large loss. The government bureau listed its 2010 population at 188,040, a 4.9 percent drop.

The only city among Michigan's five largest to show a gain was Sterling Heights, which grew by 4.2 percent to 129,699 in 2010.

The statewide population fell 0.6 percent, to 9,883,640 in 2010 from 9,938,444 in 2000, although it did make gains with Hispanics and residents of Asian origin.

The non-Hispanic Asian population was 236,490, up 35 percent over the decade -- Michigan's fastest growing racial group.

Asians now account for 2.4 percent of the state's residents.

Michigan's Hispanic population grew by 34.7 percent, to 436,358 or 4.4 percent of the overall population. Also up slightly was the American Indian population, which rose 1.3 percent to 54,665.

Mr. Metzger said the drop-off in Detroit partially reflects the migration of middle-class blacks to suburban counties, a trend begun by whites decades ago.

But the numbers also show many blacks have given up on Michigan altogether: The state's non-Hispanic black population fell from 1,408,522 to 1,383,756, a 1.8 percent drop. That marks Michigan's first drop in black residents since statehood, and a historically significant change for a state that was long a magnet for blacks leaving the South to escape discrimination and seek jobs, said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer.

More recently, the housing crisis accelerated foreclosures and drove down prices, which Mr. Metzger said has enabled more black families to buy houses in the suburbs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.

  SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau

 
    SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau