If discrepancies are found, Ms. Blume said she'll recommend that the city challenge the count. Census officials acknowledge the Cincinnati office had a difficult start but added that problems were corrected and had no impact on the final count. I am pretty confident that it was an accurate count. The final number is critical for several reasons. In addition to funding, the count will be used to redraw congressional and state legislative boundaries, potentially costing Cincinnati political clout.
Businesses also use census fig ures to decide where to build new stores.
That's especially important for Cincinnati as it tries to develop more downtown housing. Housing advocates warn that people are reluctant to move downtown or into neighborhoods nearby unless services such as grocery stores and dry cleaners are available. Experts think the Census Bureau's final count missed 3.3 million people nationwide. The Census Monitoring Board, established by Congress in 1997 to oversee the 2000 count, reviewed the region's census efforts during three visits to Cincinnati, in April, May and June. The Cincinnati office had a difficult time completing its goal of counting people who failed to return questionnaires because it couldn't recruit enough workers, the report said.