Markowitz Releases Statement Challenging Census Results

New York City is currently challenging the official results of the 2010 U.S. Census and asking Census Bureau officials to conduct additional surveys in neighborhoods throughout Brooklyn and Queens – including Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge – where they say the population was erroneously undercounted.

According to the Census, our increasingly crowded corner of Brooklyn is chock-full of vacant homes. To both residents and local authorities, as well any anyone who has walked the bustling streets of Southwestern Brooklyn, these statistics seem to fly in the face of common sense.

City officials such as Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz believe a correct count could mean the inclusion of tens of thousands of previously uncounted residents.

BP Markowitz issued the following statement yesterday:

“With the release of the 2010 Census results for New  York City , it became immediately clear that Brooklyn was tremendously undercounted, particularly in areas of our borough where there are large immigrant and minority communities, including South and Central  Brooklyn . As pointed out in Mayor Bloomberg’s challenge to the U.S. Census Bureau, nowhere is this more apparent than in Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge, two of Brooklyn ’s most vibrant neighborhoods but with large numbers of vacant housing units according to obviously flawed Census data. It is inconceivable that Brooklyn —the hottest borough in which to live, work and play—grew only a small percentage in the past decade. According to some estimates, Brooklyn has grown by more than 40,000 residents if you just count Williamsburg and DUMBO, and that doesn’t include Downtown Brooklyn and neighborhoods surrounding 4th Avenue . My office was actively involved in reaching out to all of our communities to be sure they were counted leading up to the Census, and we continue to work with the City and community leaders to do everything possible to prevent this from happening again, and to secure a more accurate count so that Brooklyn and New York City receive their fair share of federal aid.”