It'd be nice if it did, but we all know better. And then there's Huntsville, which was supposedly growing while bigger places like Birmingham struggled. But we do feel like there was steady growth based on residential growth. There is no way we are declining. A population decline could jeopardize some of that money, which pays for housing project maintenance, road construction and air pollution control and other projects.
Civic pride is also at stake.
The civic center is named for Wernher von Braun, whose team of German rocket scientists settled in Huntsville after World War II and designed the Saturn V moon rocket at Redstone Arsenal, which borders the city. New neighborhoods sprang up and house values in historic districts soared. The new census said Huntsville lost about 1,600 people over the last decade. Graham suspects census workers were confused by the city's irregular, twisting boundaries and people who live in Huntsville were counted as living in Madison County, which grew about 16 percent. Thousands of new homes have been built in nearby Madison, which saw its population double.